The drug Favipiravir, developed almost 25 years ago, has showed favourable results in treating Covid-19. The China’s National Centre for Biotechnology development claimed the same in clinical trial of 340 patients.
Japanese drug maker Fujifilm developed this drug molecule, Favipiravir, and patented it in 1995. The patent expired in 2015, so it was made generic and open for other companies to develop.
Many drugmakers started digging up old files to look for sure for the wildfire like spreading coronavirus. Over 20 anti-virals, either discontinued or research has been halted, are in the list of World Health Organization as the possible candidates for treating Covid-19.
Lasa Supergenerics, A Mumbai based API manufacturer in India, has started developing the Favipiravir. The CEO of Lasa Supergenerics, Omkar Herelekar, said that they are ready to submit the bio equivalence data to the drug controllers of India in the next 45 days.
Another Japanese drugmaker, Takeda, said last month that it is exploring whether the selected therapies or molecules of drugs could be viable to effectively treat the Covid-19. A French drugmaker, Sanofi, has tied up with Regeneron, a US firm, to study whether the former arthritis drug can treat SARS-Coranirus 2.