A few weeks ago I reported that the Japanese governement believed that the anti-influenza drug Avigan (Known as Favipiravir) developed by Fujifilm would be an effective treatment for the Coronavirus. Today Chineses officials said “an active ingredient of the company’s Avigan anti-flu drug appeared to help coronavirus patients recover.”
“Favipiravir has been effective, with no obvious side-effects, in helping coronavirus patients recover, Zhang Xinmin, an official at China’s Science and Technology Ministry, told reporters at a news conference on Tuesday.
But a Fujifilm spokesman said the company expects no direct earnings impact from potential sales growth of Favipiravir in China, at least for now, as its license for the key ingredient in the country already expired last year.
In Japan, Fujifilm manufactures Avigan only on receiving orders from the government and has no sales target for the drug, she said.”
Avigan is a very interesting drug and it was also successfully used off label to help combat the 2016 Ebola outbreak in Guinea. While it will not cure Coronavirus initial clinical trials in Shezhen have had very positive results:
“In a clinical trial in Shenzhen involving 80 participants, patients who took Favipiravir showed greater chest improvement and took less time to test negative for the genomic trace of the virus, compared with patients not given the drug, Zhang said.”
Let’s hope Avigan and the recent developments with vaccine trials and production capacity which we reported here help us improve mortality rates so we can all return to life as usual sooner rather than later.
via JapanToday
