Very soon, a pill to treat Covid-19

Hyderabad: A simple pill to treat Covid-19 positive patients! Yes, an anti-viral pill that could be easily prescribed and taken orally by Covid positive patients with a promise of cutting down the risk of hospitalisation and death by at least by half, could hit the Indian markets in the coming months. Multiple research institutions and […]

Hyderabad: A simple pill to treat Covid-19 positive patients! Yes, an anti-viral pill that could be easily prescribed and taken orally by Covid positive patients with a promise of cutting down the risk of hospitalisation and death by at least by half, could hit the Indian markets in the coming months.

Multiple research institutions and pharma companies in the country and abroad are at various stages of research on the anti-viral drug Molnupiravir and in the coming months the drug is likely become a part of the existing resources that are available to treat Covid-19.

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On Friday, international drug company Merck in its interim clinical trial results announced that its experimental oral drug Molnupiravir for Covid-19 reduced around 50 per cent the chance of hospitalisation or death for patients at risk of severe disease. The anti-viral drug is in undergoing phase III clinical trials at Hyderabad-based Yashoda Hospitals, being taken-up in collaboration with Natco Pharma.

“Yes, Molnupiravir is undergoing trials at Yashoda Hospitals. In fact, the results have been very encouraging and hopefully the drug should be available in the coming months,” says Medical Director, Yashoda Hospitals, Dr Amidalya Lingaiah.

Apart from Yashoda Hospitals, city-based Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT) had also entered into a MoU for process technology transfer and manufacturing of Molnupiravir with Suven Pharmaceuticals and CSIR-National Institute of Interdisciplinary Science and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram.

The Natco pharma had recently received approval from Indian drug regulator Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) to conduct the phase III clinical trials of the antiviral drug Molnupiravir. The pre-clinical (animal) studies of Molnupiravir in India were very promising. The researchers found that the anti-viral can remarkably reduce Covid-19 load and completely suppress the spread of disease from animal to animal, and stopped the virus from multiplying.

In June, while announcing the collaboration, the IICT researchers had said that Molnupiravir could be a game changer in mitigation of SARS-CoV-2. The antiviral drug was initially developed to treat influenza and was repurposed to completely suppress the Covid virus transmission within 24 hours.

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