Posted on 03/19/2020 6:21:19 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Mylan (NASDAQ:MYL) has restarted production of its hydroxychloroquine sulfate tablets at its West Virginia manufacturing facility as a potential treatment for COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. The company plans to have product available by mid-April and thinks it can ramp up to 50 million tablets, which could treat more than 1.5 million people.
Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, a less toxic metabolite of chloroquine, are antiviral medications that are approved to treat malaria. Because it's less toxic and has anti-inflammatory properties, hydroxychloroquine is also approved to treat a pair of auto-immune disorders, lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis.
An article published in the journal Cell Research in February showed that chloroquine inhibited the 2019-nCoV coronavirus as well as Gilead Sciences' (NASDAQ:GILD) remdesivir in an experiment testing how well the virus infects cells grown in a laboratory. Gilead is running a late-stage clinical trial of remdesivir as a COVID-19 treatment, but since it hasn't been approved for any diseases, remdesivir isn't as widely available as chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine.
This week, some of those same researchers published research in Cell Discovery comparing chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, showing chloroquine was more active than hydroxychloroquine, but the lower toxicity of hydroxychloroquine could allow it to be dosed at a higher level and make up for the lower activity. The anti-inflammatory property of hydroxychloroquine could also make the drug more effective since some patients with COVID-19 have had overactive immune systems that result in a cytokine storm where the immune system starts attacking the patient's own cells.
Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine have been around for decades and are available as generics, so Mylan isn't likely to make very much selling generic hydroxychloroquine. Bayer (OTC:BAYRY) is donating 3 million tablets of chloroquine to the U.S. government for potential use as a treatment for COVID-19.
Our US Army should know more about hydroxychloroquine than anyone else. They have been giving it to healthy soldiers in Malaria areas for over 65 years.
It is well proven and should be easily available.- Tom
If this were to happen in a big way, and potentially saved hundreds of thousands of lives from all over the world, I’d put my money on Trump over Biden.
Fox's Laura Ingraham just had a Doctor on, who said his hospital has been using hydroxychloroquine on patients with severe coronavirus infection and it is working. -Tom
Thanks Tom...I’m feeling a lot more positive tonight vs last night.
” are antiviral medications that are approved to treat malaria”
i keep seeing brainless “reporters” repeating that nonsense ... hydroxychloroquine is an ANTIPARASITIC treatment for malaria that may have novel antiviral properties against COVID-19 ... malaria is a parasite, NOT a virus ...
Another poster on an FR thread today said his pharmacist told him they mostly use it for rheumatoid arthritis these days.
So they have tons of knowledge on how it works etc.
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