Russia affirms promising signs in first favipiravir trials

MOSCOW: A candidate drug to treat the new coronavirus, favipiravir, has produced promising results in the first clinical trials in Russia, according to the Russian Direct Investment Fund, which provided 150 million rubles ($ 2 million) in funding for the project.

RDIF Director Kirill Dmitriev said 60 percent of the 40 coronavirus patients taking favipiravir tablets, which was first developed in Japan under the Avigan name, tested negative in five days and said the treatment It could cut coronavirus recovery times in half.

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Drug makers are rushing to develop treatments and vaccines for the highly contagious coronavirus that has killed more than 290,000 people worldwide, infected more than 4.2 million, and devastated economies globally.

Avigan, known generically as favipiravir, was developed in the late 1990s by a company that Fujifilm later bought when he entered health care. The drug works by short-circuiting the reproduction mechanism of certain RNA viruses such as influenza.

Favipiravir is also being tested in India by Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Ltd.

Russia, which has the second highest number of coronavirus cases behind the United States, is also testing prototypes of vaccines in animals, while the RDIF has diverted funds to produce more tests in the country.

“This will reduce the burden on medical centers and, according to our estimates, will also reduce the number of epidemiologically dangerous patients by approximately 50 percent,” said Dmitriev, referring to a course of treatment with favipiravir.

The clinical trial of 330 coronavirus-infected patients should be completed by the end of May, said Andrei Ivashchenko, a professor at the Russian Academy of Sciences and chairman of the board of directors of ChemRar, the company that conducts the trials.

“ChemRar’s existing production facilities … will allow us to produce tens of thousands of treatment programs per month, which we estimate and hope will be sufficient for the Russian Federation as a minimum,” said Ivashchenko.

He said early tests showed there were minimal side effects, although he added that pregnant women were prohibited from using it. The Avigan drug in Japan was found to cause birth defects.

Ivashchenko also said there was not enough data to say how effective the treatment would be for seriously ill patients.

The World Health Organization (WHO) establishes a four-phase overview of how clinical trials work. Ongoing trials in Russia would fall in the first phase of that framework.

“Phase I studies generally test new drugs for the first time in a small group of people to assess a safe dose range and identify side effects,” says the WHO on its website.

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