Inclusion Criteria:  Adults (≥ 18 years of age); signed informed consent by any patient capable of giving consent, or, when the patient is not capable of giving consent, by his or her legal/authorized representative or according to local guidelines; patients clinically diagnosed with SARS-CoV-2 virus by PCR or by other approved diagnostic methodology; hospitalized with COVID-19-induced pneumonia evidenced by chest x-ray or CT scan with pulmonary infiltrates; patients having a PAO2/FIO2 ratio > 250 mmHg; well-selected patients having a PAO2/FIO2 ratio ≤ 250 mmHg that, in the investigator's judgment, doesn't preclude the patient's safe participation in and completion of the study; patients being able to swallow.  Exclusion Criteria:  Proportion of hospitalized patients requiring invasive mechanical ventilation at the time of hospital admission (patients requiring non-invasive mechanical ventilation are eligible); uncontrolled systemic infection (other than COVID-19); hypersensitivity to the active substance or to any of the excipients of the experimental drug, including known allergy to dairy product; any serious medical condition or abnormality of clinical laboratory tests; in the opinion of the investigator, progression to death is imminent and highly likely within the next 24 hours, irrespective of the provision of treatments; current participation in any other interventional investigational trials; pregnant or breastfeeding woman; concurrent malignancy requiring chemotherapy; renal insufficiency; all types of disability.