"A question for the scientists on this Hub: How promising is Apabetalone when it comes to COVID 19?"

This has been covered in multiple threads/posts here on Agoracom and in multiple company press releases over the past several months. You've been a regular here Koo, so I'm sure you've seen these. Apabetalone has been suggested to have two promising ways to combat this COVID-19 panedemic, as I summarize below. Keep in mind that no pre-clinical animal model studies or clinical data in human patients has been reported for effects of apabetalone on virus infectivity or disease severity.

1) Decrease the incidence of infection with SARS-Cov2. It has been documented in cell culture studies that apabetalone decreases the expression of ACE2, one of the receptors for the SARS-Cov2 virus that allows the virus to attach to and infect cells. Based on this mechanism of apabetalone decreasing ACE2, it is proposed that apabetalone may decrease the ability of SARS-Cov2 to infect cells. This could potentially decrease the risk of infection for the individual. Even if the apabetalone-pateint still gets infects, apabetalone could still potentially decrease the severity of COVID-19 due to lower viral loads and lower number of cells getting infected, as well as #2 below. Also apabetalone could potentially decrease viral transmission to others due to decreased viral loads (the virus can't replicate if it can't infect).

2) Decrease the incidence of severe COVID in those infected with SARS-Cov2. As we all know from the clinical and pre-clinical studies, apabetatalone elicits a myriad of gene expression changes that decrease/restrain/cool off/ inflammation, acute phase response, and the complement cascade. Heightened activation of inflammation, acute phase response, and the complement cascade is seen in severe COVID-19 (caveat: generalized statement here). Therefore, apabetalone treatment of patients infected with SARS-CoV2 could restrain the hyperactivation of these pathways and decrease the progression to severe COVID-19 complications. An effect of apabetalone on infectivity could also contribute to apabetalone effects on disease severity, as discussed in #1 above. 

BDAZ