Re-purposing Existing Drugs to Treat COVID-19 | Benefits vs. Risks

In just a few short months, the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, which causes the disease COVID-19,  has become a global health pandemic, resulting in unprecedented hospitalizations and deaths of patients with severe symptoms.  The urgency to find effective therapies is an important focus of thousands of researchers.  Perhaps the most expedient approach to meeting this need explores the “re-purposing” of existing drugs which may mitigate symptoms or directly treat the infection.  Thus, a number of drugs, originally marketed for other indications, have (and continue to be) investigated in the hopes of helping COVID-19 patients in desperate need.

This webinar reviewed many of the re-purposed agents (such as chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine–with and without azithromycin, remdesivir, others) along with the preclinical and clinical data associated with their impact on the virus and COVID-19 patients.  Importantly, this data was viewed in the context of a risk-to-benefit assessment, based on known risks associated with the drugs and potential new risks in a vulnerable patient population.  The presentation also revealed some of the blind spots associated with anecdotal clinical data from small clinical trials, along with how definitive clinical trials differ in their use of methodologies such as double-blinding, randomization and control groups.

Finally, a brief review of some of the approaches being used to discover new therapies designed specifically for SARS-CoV-2 was discussed.

This FREE webinar was presented by Dr Bryan Norman. Bryan is the tutor on the 1.5 day course: Medicinal Chemistry Strategies to Mitigate Preclinical Safety Risks in Drug Discovery and the following VIRTUAL TRAINING WORKSHOPS: