Way back at the very beginning of the pandemic when it was mostly in China, we learned that men were more likely than women to die of covid. There was speculation that this was due to the high rates of smoking in China among men but not women. It turned out that this was incorrect. As the virus spread to populations with few smokers, the increased risk for men remained.
A new theory emerged -- that the higher levels of androgens in males increased activity of the TMPRSS2 protease, which is responsible for activating the spike protein. That led to an early experiment in which Proxalutamide, an androgen blocker in development to treat some types of prostate and breast cancer, was given to covid patients. That experiment had promising results, with faster recovery for the drug group over the placebo group.
This study is a randomized, placebo-controlled trial of Roxalutamide in people hospitalized for covid. The result was that about half of the placebo group died, but only 11% of those that received the drug did so. This is a 78% reduction in death. This benefit was seen in both male and female patients.
The main side effect was diarrhea.
This study included 645 people, and a larger trial would be needed before it could be given emergency use authorization. But these results are very promising so far.
Link to study:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.22.21259318v1.full.pdf