6A — THE OBSERVER
SATURDAY, MARCH 21, 2020
NATION
Att ention shifts to potential coronavirus treatments
Drugs used to treat
other illnesses being
used in trials
“We’re looking at drugs that
are already approved for other
indications.”
By Marilynn Marchione
Dr. Stephen Hahn, Food and Drug Administration
Commissioner
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON —
President Donald Trump
focused attention on pos-
sible treatments for the
new coronavirus on
Thursday, citing potential
use of a drug long used
to treat malaria and some
other approaches still in
testing.
At a White House news
conference, Trump and
Food and Drug Adminis-
tration Commissioner Dr.
Stephen Hahn cited the
malaria drug chloroquine,
along with remdesivir,
an experimental antiviral
from Gilead Sciences,
and possibly using plasma
from survivors of COVID-
19, the disease the new
virus causes.
Those treatments are
among several being
tested that might ease
symptoms but do not stop
the virus from spreading.
Potential stopgaps
Also on Thursday,
Swiss drugmaker Roche
said it was working with
the U.S. government to
start a study of Actemra,
a drug used now for rheu-
matoid arthritis and some
other conditions, against
the coronavirus.
“We’re looking at drugs
that are already approved
for other indications”
as a potential bridge or
stopgap, Hahn said, while
also doing rigorous studies
to see if the drugs truly
make a difference versus
usual care, and if they are
safe when used for a new
purpose.
“We want to make sure
this is done well and right,”
he said.
No drug is specifi cally
approved now for treating
COVID-19.
Chloroquine and a sim-
ilar drug — hydroxychloro-
quine, sold as Plaquenil by
French drugmaker Sanofi
and in generic form — are
available now and can be
used off-label in the United
States. They may inter-
fere with the coronavirus
being able to enter cells,
and some scientists have
reported possible encour-
aging signs in test-tube and
other small studies.
German drugmaker
Bayer has said it would
donate 3 million tablets
of its chloroquine drug,
Resochin, for use against
coronavirus. That drug
was never approved in the
U.S., so Bayer is working
with federal agencies to
get an emergency-use
authorization.
Chloroquine and remde-
sivir are among the drugs
the World Health Orga-
nization said would be
tried in a fi ve-part inter-
national study announced
Wednesday.
Off-label use draws
skepticism
Already approved drugs
are tempting for doctors
to use off label, but formal
studies are needed to see if
they truly work for a new
purpose or disease, said
Dr. Ross McKinney Jr.,
chief scientifi c offi cer for
the Association of Amer-
ican Medical Colleges,
which represents about
400 major teaching hospi-
tals across the country.
Chloroquine may look
promising in a test tube,
but “I’m skeptical it will
be effective” in patients,
he said Thursday in a call
with reporters.
Remdesivir inter-
feres with virus reproduc-
tion and has shown some
promise in lab and animal
studies against other coro-
naviruses that cause sim-
ilar diseases, MERS and
SARS.
It’s being tested in at
least fi ve separate exper-
iments, and Gilead also
has given it to several hun-
dred severely ill patients in
the U.S, Europe and Japan
under “compassionate use”
provisions. That includes
three of the fi rst dozen
COVID-19 patients in the
United States. They recov-
ered, but it’s impossible to
know whether they would
have anyway without the
drug.
On a podcast Wed-
nesday with a medical
journal editor, the National
Institutes of Health’s Dr.
Anthony Fauci said China
had enrolled several hun-
dred people in its two
remdesivir studies but is
having trouble recruiting
more because many
patients just want the drug
and are unwilling to take a
chance on being randomly
assigned to a comparison
group that just gets usual
care.
It would be great if an
independent monitoring
board could look at results
so far and see if there are
signs of safety or effective-
ness, Fauci said.
“We desperately need
the data” on this and other
drugs being tested in rig-
orous scientifi c studies,
Fauci said. “We’ve got to
be able to determine if
they work and if they’re
safe.”
Apart from the studies
in China, Fauci’s agency
is running a study of rem-
desivir that aims to recruit
400 patients in the U.S.
and elsewhere. That study
is “adaptive,” meaning
it will allow scientists to
add other drugs under the
same testing umbrella as
time goes on. Gilead also
has said it will do two
studies testing remdesivir
treatment for fi ve or 10
days in about 1,000 hospi-
talized patients primarily
in Asia.
Remdesivir “does look
like it could be promising,”
said Dr. Daniel Kuritzkes,
chief of infectious diseases
at Brigham and Wom-
en’s Hospital in Boston. In
animal tests, it was “quite
effective at preventing
infection” and reducing
severity of illness and
damage to the lungs when
given early enough in the
course of illness, he said.
“It interferes with the
enzyme that reproduces
the genetic material of the
virus” and acts at an ear-
lier step than protease
inhibitors such as lopinavir
and ritonavir, which are
used now to treat HIV
and also are being tested
against the new corona-
virus, Kuritzkes explained.
developing monoclonal
antibodies, proteins that
specifi cally fi ght the coro-
navirus. Antibodies or
combinations of them were
tried against Ebola, and
doctors think a similar
approach may help against
the new virus.
Finally, some doc-
tors have urged collecting
plasma from people who
have survived COVID-19,
because they should have
made natural antibodies
to the virus that could be
given to people to help
their immune systems fi ght
it off.
NIAID-RML via AP
This undated electron microscope image made available by the U.S. National Institutes
of Health in February 2020 shows the virus that causes COVID-19. The sample was isolat-
ed from a patient in the U.S.
HIV drugs under
consideration
The HIV drugs gave
disappointing results,
failing to shorten ill-
ness in a study of 199
severely ill hospitalized
patients in China, scien-
tists from that country
reported Wednesday in the
New England Journal of
Medicine.
Some other studies
testing the HIV drug
combo are still underway.
The Roche drug,
Actemra, is used now for
rheumatoid arthritis and
some other conditions.
It targets interleukin-6,
which plays a role in
infl ammation. Roche’s
U.S. subsidiary, Genen-
tech, said Thursday that it
was working with the FDA
to start a 330-patient study
on hospitalized COVID-19
patients in April.
Regeneron Pharmaceu-
ticals says it will launch a
study of Kevzara, its rheu-
matoid arthritis drug that
also targets interleukin-6,
against the coronavirus.
A Japanese company,
Fujifi lm Toyama Chemical,
says tests suggest its drug
favipiravir, used to treat
the fl u in Japan, shows
promise against the coro-
navirus, though no large
studies of that have been
published yet.
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