The company, “Pfizer BioNTech”, announced, on Tuesday, that it has begun human trials of a new oral treatment for the emerging Coronavirus, in the form of tablets that can be taken when the first symptoms of the disease appear.
If Pfizer’s trials for the new drug are successful, it will be possible to prescribe the tablets for patients with early stage in the infection, this would help a lot to avoid disease complications, and to prevent the virus from replication in the body and its spearding.
The newly tested drug is a protease inhibitor, it binds to an enzyme called “protease” to prevent the virus replication in cells. Protease-inhibiting drugs have succeeded in treating other types of viruses, such as HIV “AIDS” and hepatitis C “, it can be used solely or in combination with another antiviral drug, Pfizer said.
The chief scientific officer of Pfizer, Mikael Dolsten, said: “Given the way in which the Coronavirus is mutating, and the continuing global impact of it, it seems that it will be important to find treatment options now, outside the pandemic.”
He explained, “No unexpected problems have appeared in the study so far,” noting that it could lead to results within weeks, according to the American agency “Bloomberg”.
Pfizer is also testing the drug for intravenous administration, it’s still in early-stage clinical trials
The primary efficacy of the innovative drug will mainly focus on people with early stages of the virus infection, Pfizer also puts in mind to test whether the new tablets work to prevent the infection and protect healthy people who have been in contact with Coronavirus patients, such as friends, roommates, or one of the family members in the quarantine at the same place.
Dolsten added that the drug will likely be administered twice a day for five days, considering that it would represent a “potential game-changer.”
Dolsten noted, “If all goes well, Pfizer could start with a much larger trial of Phases Two and Three, as early as the second quarter of 2021, which could allow it to apply for emergency use permission from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) by the end of the year.” This year, depending on how the pandemic situation would evolve in the near future.
