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MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia has approved R-Pharm’s coronavir treatment for outpatients with mild to moderate COVID-19 infections and the antiviral drug could be rolled out in the country’s pharmacies next week, the company said on Friday.
The approval of coronavir as a prescription drug follows the green light for another Russian COVID-19 drug, Avifavir, in May. Both are based on favipiravir, which was developed in Japan and is widely used there as a basis for viral treatments.
R-Pharm’s announcement is another sign that Russia is pushing hard to take the global lead in the race against the virus. It is already exporting its COVID-19 tests and has closed several international agreements for the supply of its Sputnik-V vaccine.
R-Pharm said it received approval for Coronavir after phase III clinical trials involving 168 COVID-19 patients.
The drug was first approved for hospital use to treat COVID-19 in July, a government record showed.
The Coronavir trial was comparatively small. The European health regulator on Friday approved the use of the steroid dexamethasone in the treatment of COVID-19 patients after a study by UK researchers on several thousand patients.
R-Pharm has started talks with pharmacies about the orders, the company spokeswoman said, and supplies of Coronavir are expected to roll out in the near future, possibly next week.
Coronavir is manufactured at R-Pharm’s facilities in Yaroslavl, about 300 km (186 miles) northeast of Moscow.
Avifavir has been available in hospitals since June, but it has not yet been supplied to pharmacies.
Both are based on the active ingredient favipiravir, which is also the key component in Fujifilm Holdings Corp’s antiviral drug Avigan, approved in Japan as an emergency flu treatment in 2014.
Trials to test it against COVID-19 are ongoing around the world. The results of a Japanese study in July were inconclusive.
It is produced by various Indian generic drug manufacturers including Lupine, Cipla, and Dr Reddy’s for use against COVID-19 in India.
(Reporting by Katya Golubkova and Polina Ivanova; Additional reporting by Ludwig Burger; Editing by David Clarke and David Goodman)
