Aerpio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Quantum Leap Healthcare Collaborative™ (Quantum Leap) announced dosing of the first patient with razuprotafib in the I-SPY COVID Trial (NCT04488081), a phase 2 platform trial aimed at improving treatment of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) in severely ill COVID-19 (adult) patients. The I-SPY COVID TRIAL, is an adaptive platform trial sponsored by Quantum Leap Healthcare Collaborative. The goal of the trial is to rapidly screen, in parallel, multiple promising agents in order to identify drugs that will have a high impact on reducing mortality, and avoid or reduce the duration of mechanical ventilation for critically-ill COVID-19 patients. This study arm will evaluate razuprotafib's potential to sufficiently stabilize the pulmonary vasculature, in order to slow or prevent the progression of COVID-19 associated pulmonary pathology, decrease the need for ventilator support, and reduce mortality. The I-SPY 2 TRIAL for stage II and III breast cancer is the longest running and most successful adaptive platform tria in oncologyl. Quantum Leap was able to use the existing I-SPY 2 TRIAL infrastructure methodology to develop the I-SPY COVID Trial (Investigation of Serial studies to Predict COVID Therapeutic Response with biomarker Integration and Adaptive Learning). The I-SPY COVID Trial is designed to rapidly screen promising experimental treatments, and re-purpose existing agents to identify the most effective treatments for severely ill COVID-19 patients. The trial is a unique collaborative effort by a consortium that includes the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), industry, patient advocates, philanthropic donors, and clinicians from multiple major U.S. research centers. Under the terms of the collaboration agreement, Quantum Leap Healthcare Collaborative is the trial sponsor and manages all study operations.