Coronavirus: China allows use of HIV drug Azvudine for adult Covid-19 patients
- Medical products regulator announces conditional approval in notice on Monday
- Genuine Biotech’s drug was cleared for HIV-1 patients a year ago
The National Medical Products Administration said in a notice on Monday that the drug, produced by Chinese pharmaceutical firm Genuine Biotech, could be used to treat the disease.
It widens the use of Azvudine, which was approved in July last year to treat people infected with the HIV-1 virus.
The drug will be the first Chinese-made oral antiviral drug to treat Covid-19. The regulator in February gave conditional approval for the use of Pfizer’s Covid-19 oral antiviral pill Paxlovid in China.
The Azvudine tablet is a small-molecule oral drug that aims to inhibit the replication of RNA viruses such as HIV and the new coronavirus, Sars-CoV-2.
Phase 3 trials of the drug have been conducted in China, Brazil and Russia since April 2020, with the results suggesting it can significantly reduce recovery time for patients with mild cases of Covid-19, according to a Henan Daily report on July 15.