The Russian Financially Supporting Body said the first approved drug in Russia to treat the Corona virus (Covid-19); Next week, Russia will start using it to treat people with the disease, in a move it hopes will ease pressure on health care devices and accelerate a return to normal economic activity.
The head of the Russian sovereign wealth fund Kirill Dimitriev said in an interview with Reuters news agency that Russian hospitals can start giving the anti-virus medicine registered in the name Avivavir to patients as of June 11.
He added that the manufacturer of the drug will produce enough to treat about sixty thousand patients per month.
There is currently no vaccine for Covid-19 caused by the emerging coronavirus, and human trials of several antivirals have not yet shown effectiveness.
A new drug produced by Gilead, called Remdisever, has had some positive results in limited trials in people with Covid-19, and patients in some countries receive it in exceptional or humanitarian cases.
A Japanese company developed Avivavir in the late 1990s, and it was bought by Fujifilm when it expanded its business to include health care.
The head of the Russian sovereign wealth fund said that Russian scientists have made adjustments to the drug to increase its effectiveness, and that Moscow will be ready to transfer the details of these amendments to other parties within two weeks.
Japan is experimenting with the same medicine under the name Avigan. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe praised him, and the government has allocated $ 128 million in funding, but it has not yet been approved for use.
Last Saturday, the name Avivavir appeared on the list of drugs approved by the Russian government.
Dmitriyev said that the clinical trials of the drug involved 330 people, and revealed his success in treating the virus in most cases within four days.
He added that the experiments are scheduled to be completed within a week, but the Ministry of Health approved the drug according to special expedited measures and a manufacturing process that started last March.
Clinical trials usually take several months to test the effectiveness of drugs, and large numbers of patients are randomly selected.
Success in the first small-scale trials is not a guarantee of success in the extended experience.
For example, a study published this month linked the anti-malarial drug hydroxy chloroquine used by US President Donald Trump and raised the risk of death in Covid-19 patients in hospitals.
Dmitriyev said that Russia was able to reduce the time period of the test, because the Japanese drug on the basis of which Avivavir was registered was registered in 2014, and passed important test stages before being modified by Russian experts.
"We believe that it will change the rules of the game, as it will reduce pressure on the health care system, and reduce the number of those who develop them to critical situations. We believe that the drug is important for the resumption of full economic activity in Russia."
Russia announced that 414,878 cases of the virus were detected, ranking third in the world on the list of the epidemic, after Brazil and the United States, but the official death toll is low, at 4,855 deaths, although this number is controversial.
Dmitriyev said that the wealth fund owns 50% of the company Kemrar, which manufactures the drug, and that he funded experiments and other work with its partners, amounting to approximately three hundred million rubles ($ 4.3 million).
He attributed the lower costs in Russia to previous drug development work in Japan.