In a new study, researchers discovered that 6 drugs approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for other diseases could be repurposed to treat or prevent COVID-19.
They screened 2 large drug libraries containing 3,769 FDA-approved drugs and found drugs that can inhibit 2 protein-cutting enzymes, called proteases, that are essential to the replication of SARS-CoV-2.
They say using FDA-approved drugs saves time—the drugs don’t need to go through the FDA approval process again—making them available quickly to treat patients who need them.
The research was conducted by a team at the Institute of Biological Chemistry, Academia Sinica, Taiwan.
The team began working on one of the proteases, known as 3CLpro, 18 years ago, during the outbreak of the original SARS virus.
Despite the variations of the virus strains emerging over the years, considering the significance of the 3CL protease in the viral replication, and the relatively low likelihood for this protein target to mutate, the researchers aim to develop a broad spectrum of antiviral drugs, helping to prevent the emergence of future pathogenic SARS-CoV strains.
Their research also enables scientists to better understand how coronavirus proteases recognize their substrates during replication.
That will help them tweak the drugs they identified to be more effective inhibitors against the protease.
The researchers plan to test the drugs against the dominant GR strain, which was the first variant to emerge, in late January or February 2020, and the recent, highly contagious United Kingdom strain.
One author of the study is Po-Huang Liang, Ph.D.
The study is published in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.
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