Paris (AFP)
Israeli generic drug giant Teva announced Friday that it will provide ten million doses of its anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine, which could prove effective in fighting the coronavirus pandemic, to US hospitals free of charge.
The company says six million doses will be delivered to US hospitals by March 31, and more than ten million in a month.
"We are committed to participating in the delivery without consideration of as many doses as possible since the demand for this treatment is accelerating," said Teva Brendan O'Grady's executive vice president, in a press release.
US President Donald Trump touted the use of chloroquine on Thursday after encouraging results in China and France, even though many experts warn of caution.
In France, the Sanofi laboratory said it was ready Tuesday to offer millions of doses of Plaquenil to potentially treat 300,000 patients.
This hydroxychloroquine molecule, also used for decades in autoimmune diseases like lupus or rheumatoid arthritis, could indeed have an effect on the elimination of the virus, said Monday Professor Didier Raoult, director of the Institute Marseille university hospital.
Similar work was carried out in China at the height of the Covid-19 epidemic in Wuhan.
According to the study carried out by Professor Raoult on 24 patients with coronavirus, six days after the start of taking Plaquenil, the virus had disappeared in three quarters of the people treated.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the federal agency that oversees the marketing of drugs in the United States, has somewhat tempered President Trump's enthusiasm by pointing out that the treatment, authorized for certain diseases, had not been approved for coronavirus.
But it will set up "an extended clinical trial," said Stephen Hahn, its leader.
On the strength of these medical advances, Teva also indicates that it will do everything to accelerate its production of hydroxychloroquine and also conduct research to see if in its large catalog of 3,500 drugs, others can be used to fight Covid -19.
© 2020 AFP