Sarasota Memorial Hospital has a new experimental treatment in its arsenal to try to dampen the deadly inflammatory response in some patients hospitalized with severe COVID-19. SMH is one of more than a dozen research sites across the nation participating in the multi-center trial of IC14, an anti-CD14 monoclonal antibody drug researchers hope will reduce dangerous levels of inflammation in COVID-19 patients. “We have good experimental treatments that help reduce the viral load in the early phase of COVID, but once the inflammatory response kicks in, it can intensify like wildfire, with devastating results,” said critical care pulmonologist Kirk Voelker, MD, who serves as medical director of Sarasota Memorial’s Clinical Research Center and is the principal investigator at the SMH site. “This anti-CD14 monoclonal antibody works at the beginning of the inflammatory cascade, and we hope will stop the cytokine storm from gaining momentum.”