Chinese drug matches Paxlovid in treating less severe Covid symptoms, study finds
- Patients who took the Chinese pill, known as VV116, recovered after a median time of 4 days and it had fewer adverse effects compared with the Pfizer drug
- However, researchers from Shanghai said they could not determine its efficacy reducing the risk of serious illness or death because of a lack of trial data
According to the study, published in the peer-reviewed New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday, patients who took the pill, known as VV116, recovered after a median time of four days, compared with five for those who took Paxlovid.
The researchers also found that the incidence of adverse events was lower in the VV116 group compared to the Paxlovid group.
However, while Paxlovid has already been shown to be 88 per cent successful in reducing hospitalisation or death among high-risk, unvaccinated individuals, the efficacy of VV116 in reducing severe symptoms could not be determined.
“Among adults with mild-to-moderate Covid-19 who were at risk for progression, VV116 was noninferior to nirmatrelvir – ritonavir [Paxlovid] with respect to the time to sustained clinical recovery, with fewer safety concerns,” the authors said in the study.
VV116 is a derivative of Gilead Sciences’ Remdesivir, the first antiviral drug approved by the US regulators for the treatment of Covid-19 and is delivered by injection.
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The pill was jointly developed by Chinese drug makers Junshi Biosciences and Vigonvital Life Science, and other research institutes under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The new study led by researchers at Shanghai’s Ruijin and Renji Hospitals outlines the result of a phase III clinical trial conducted in seven hospitals in the city between April 4 and May 2 – at the height of its strict lockdown.
Of the 822 participants, 741 completed a 28-day follow-up in which 367 participants took VV116 and 374 participants took Paxlovid.
They found that the VV116 group and Paxlovid group showed similar results in easing Covid-19 symptoms and the time before they tested negative.
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Meanwhile, 67 per cent of participants who received VV116 reported adverse events, compared with 77 per cent for the Paxlovid group.
The authors also noted that Paxlovid had drug-drug interactions with multiple medications, but VV116 was less likely to interact with the drugs for combination therapy.
In February China approved the emergency use of Paxlovid, making it the first foreign treatment for Covid-19 in the country.
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However, the study has some limitations. The authors were not able to conduct the trial with a “double-blind and double dummy design”, meaning that without placebos, the participants knew what drugs they took.
The researchers explained in the paper that the production of the placebo tablet for Paxlovid had not been completed before the trial began because of the Omicron outbreak in Shanghai earlier this year.
Another limitation was that no conclusions could be made about the efficacy of VV116 for reducing severe symptoms or deaths, because no participant developed such symptoms, the researchers said.
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That may be related to the participants of the trial – whose median age was 53 years old, 92 per cent had mild symptoms and three-quarters were fully vaccinated or boosted.
“Oral small molecule antiviral drugs for the treatment of Covid-19 have the advantages of ease of use and accessibility, and they will play an important role in the prevention and control of Covid-19 outbreaks,” Ding Jian, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, commented on the New England Journal of Medicine’s official WeChat account on Thursday.
