By Jared S. Hopkins
U.S. drugmakers are shipping antiviral drugs to Chinese health
authorities to assess whether the medicines could help contain the
explosion of respiratory virus infections sweeping the country.
AbbVie Inc. and Johnson & Johnson are among the drugmakers
that have begun shipping drugs approved to treat HIV, while Gilead
Sciences Inc. is exploring whether it should send an antiviral
therapy it is developing.
It isn't known whether the drugs, especially one that hasn't
been approved to treat infectious disease, would be able to help
patients infected with the new coronavirus. Chinese authorities
have requested the shipments to test the drugs' effectiveness.
In addition, a Chinese government commission has recommended
that doctors administer AbbVie's HIV drug, called Kaletra, to
patients who have tested positive for the new illness.
There are no vaccines or drugs approved anywhere in the world
specifically for the new coronavirus, prompting health authorities
to explore repurposing untested antivirals in a desperate effort to
help contain an outbreak that has been spreading rapidly in China
and has appeared in more limited cases overseas.
Several drugmakers and academic researchers are also trying to
develop vaccines, but they could take months to be ready for human
testing, and even longer for wider use.
The coronavirus, which originated last month in the central
Chinese city of Wuhan, has infected more than 2,700 people and
killed at least 80, mostly in surrounding Hubei province, with
public-health officials warning that its spread is
accelerating.
The number of confirmed U.S. cases has risen to five, and the
federal government is working to evacuate American citizens from
the epicenter in China.
On Sunday, a Chinese national health program recommended the use
of a treatment from AbbVie, which the company sells under the brand
names Kaletra and Aluvia, according to Beijing's Health
Commission.
The therapy, first approved two decades ago to treat HIV,
combines two antiviral agents. It belongs to a class of drugs known
as protease inhibitors, which block a key enzyme that helps viruses
replicate.
AbbVie, which is based in the Chicago suburbs, donated about $2
million worth of Kaletra doses as an "experimental option" in
response to a request by Chinese health authorities, a company
spokeswoman said. She added that China, not AbbVie, is leading
testing of the therapy for treating coronavirus.
A hospital in Wuhan is conducting a randomized clinical trial to
assess whether Kaletra works against the new illness, researchers
said in an article published Friday in The Lancet medical
journal.
Researchers previously have found the drug to be effective in
treating another coronavirus: A combination of the two drugs that
make up Kaletra, lopinavir and ritonavir, administered to patients
with SARS showed a "substantial clinical benefit," or fewer adverse
clinical outcomes, according to a 2004 study published in the
Thorax medical journal.
Johnson & Johnson agreed to a request over the weekend by
Chinese health authorities to ship its HIV drug Prezcobix for
potential treatment of coronavirus infection, Chief Scientific
Officer Paul Stoffels said in an interview.
The therapy, which is also a protease inhibitor combining two
antiviral agents, should arrive by Tuesday, he said.
"Industry can take different steps to combating this epidemic as
fast as possible," Dr. Stoffels said. Studying Prezcobix in
patients who test positive for the coronavirus wouldn't harm them,
he said, and could help authorities find a treatment that
works.
Dr. Stoffels said J&J is also reviewing its library of
compounds, including those currently in laboratories, that could
potentially provide other help to patients.
Merck & Co. assigned a team of scientists to assess whether
any of the company's internal assets might be effective against the
Wuhan coronavirus, a spokesman said. Merck makes the only Ebola
vaccine that has been approved by U.S. and European health
authorities.
Gilead, of Foster City, Calif., is in talks with researchers and
clinicians in the U.S. and China about using its experimental
antiviral therapy, remdesivir, the company said. Remdesivir isn't
licensed or approved inside or outside the U.S.
Gilead said remdesivir has been active against other
coronaviruses in lab and animal studies. The same drug has reduced
the severity of Ebola in human patients, though by a lesser degree
than two other therapies for the infectious disease.
Remdesivir also has been shown to lessen lung disease from
Middle East respiratory syndrome, a coronavirus known as MERS, in
mice, according to a paper published earlier this month in Nature
Communications.
In addition to efforts at repurposing existing antiviral
treatments, several drugmakers and some academic researchers are
also racing to develop a vaccine to prevent coronavirus
infections.
J&J will also try to develop a vaccine, using the same
technology applied to its Ebola vaccine, currently used in Africa,
Dr. Stoffels said. It could be tested in humans in eight to 12
months.
--Betsy McKay contributed to this article.
Write to Jared S. Hopkins at jared.hopkins@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 27, 2020 18:24 ET (23:24 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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