Figure 1. Baricitinib's journey as a candidate therapeutic for severe COVID‐19.

An artificial intelligence platform called BenevolentAI identified baricitinib, a Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitor used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, as a potential COVID‐19 therapy. The platform predicted it might also inhibit Numb‐associated kinases (NAKs), which are important for viral entry into a cell. In their new work, Stebbing and colleagues validate these properties in in vitro models and provide evidence from four patients that baricitinib may be beneficial in COVID‐19 patients, prompting several placebo‐controlled clinical trials that are now underway.