1 June 2020
The Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation has granted a temporary registration certificate to Covid-19 treatment, Avifavir, which produced by the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and the ChemRar Group. Said to be Russia’s first Covid-19 drug, Avifavir is a generic version of Japanese anti-flu drug, Avigan.
Moderna has started dosing participants in each age cohort of its Phase II clinical trial of its Covid-19 vaccine candidate, mRNA-1273. The trial, which is expected to involve 600 healthy participants, will assess a 50μg and a 100μg dose of the vaccine. The company intends to work with the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to launch a Phase III trial.
The Taiwan Food and Drug Administration has provided conditional approval to Gilead Sciences’ remdesivir to treat Covid-19, after considering preliminary evidence on the drug’s safety and efficacy and its approval in other countries. Gilead has committed to donate 1.5 million doses of remdesivir, which can treat at least 140,000 patients, to help fight the pandemic.
South Korea-based Celltrion Group has reported positive results from the pre-clinical testing of its Covid-19 antibody treatment, which showed a 100-fold decrease in the viral load of SARS-CoV-2. The pre-clinical study was carried out in an animal model in alliance with Chungbuk National University College of Medicine.
