By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter
THURSDAY, April 23, 2020 (HealthDay News) — Dozens of drugs are being investigated for their value in treating COVID-19, as desperation drives doctors and researchers to look for something that could battle the virus and save lives.
“There are really no FDA-approved medications for the treatment of COVID-19, unfortunately,” said Ashley Barlow, a pharmacy resident with the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore. “We’re doing the best we can to try and ramp up studies, but since we’re doing it in such a quick period of time there are a lot of flaws we have to take into consideration.”
The COVID-19 drugs being tried and tested fall into two general categories, explained Dr. Rajesh Gandhi, director of HIV clinical services and education at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston:
- Antivirals aimed at limiting the spread of the coronavirus inside the bodies of infected people.
- Immune system medications that limit the damage the body does to itself while fighting off the coronavirus.
“There are drugs we believe can help pull people through the natural evolution of this infection and can really make a difference,” Gandhi said. “Right now, the jury is still out on some of these things that have been proposed. That’s why we need to have clinical trials that will provide an answer.”
Remdesivir
Many of the drugs proposed to treat COVID-19 are already approved for other conditions, and can be put into immediate off-label use. That’s not the case with one of the most promising potential therapies, an IV drug called remdesivir, originally developed to treat Ebola and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome).
“Remdesivir is not an approved drug, so the only way you can get it is if you are in a clinical trial or through a compassionate use program,” Gandhi noted.
The drug attacks the genetic code of the COVID-19 coronavirus, hampering its ability to replicate, explained Barlow, lead author of a review of potential coronavirus therapies published recently in the journal Pharmacotherapy.
Early studies in small groups have shown benefit in patients, but doctors are still waiting on results from larger clinical trials to verify those findings, Barlow and Gandhi said.
Continued
“I would say in the next month we will probably get an answer on remdesivir,” Gandhi said, adding that even partial benefit would be a good result.
“Even if it doesn’t work 100% of the time, then you have something to build upon,” Gandhi explained. For example, remdesivir could be added to a cocktail of drugs, much in the way that researchers developed an effective therapy for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine
These anti-malarial drugs have been touted by President Donald Trump and others as one of the great hopes for COVID-19 treatment.
But these drugs have already laid an egg in several major studies, Barlow said. Clinical trials are ongoing for the two drugs, but researchers aren’t holding out much hope.
“We were looking for a promising drug, and unfortunately hydroxychloroquine ends up being not so promising as we originally thought,” Barlow said.
One nationwide study focusing on its use in U.S. veterans hospitals found that 28% of patients treated with hydroxychloroquine died versus 11% of those who didn’t get the drug, according to media reports on Tuesday.
Even before these results, doctors had already started turning away from the drugs, Gandhi said.
“A few weeks ago, when it really started getting intense here in Boston, we were using hydroxychloroquine more than we are now,” Gandhi said. “The waters have remained very muddy. It’s very unclear whether it’s been beneficial, and there are more reports of toxicity.”