Israeli pharmaceutical giant Teva on Friday announced that it would donate millions of hydroxychloroquine sulfate containing a possible drug for coronavirus to hospitals across the US.
A statement from the company said that more than 6 million doses of hydroxychloroquine sulfate — as a potential aid to combat coronavirus — would be distributed through its wholesalers.
“We are committed to helping to supply as many tablets as possible as demand for this treatment accelerates at no cost,” Brendan O’Grady — Teva Executive Vice President, North America Commercial — stated. “Immediately upon learning of the potential benefit of hydroxychloroquine, Teva began to assess supply and to urgently acquire additional ingredients to make more product while arranging for all of what we had to be distributed immediately.”
Hydroxychloroquine is an arthritis medicine that also can be used to prevent malaria. It is available in the US by prescription only. It is marketed under the brand name Plaquenil and it is also sold as a generic medicine.
Teva’s statement emphasized that while hydroxychloroquine was “not currently approved for use in the treatment of COVID-19, it is currently under investigation for efficacy against the coronavirus and has been requested by US government officials to be made available for use immediately.”
Teva added that it was “also reviewing supply of both hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine globally to determine whether there are additional supply and access opportunities for patients.”
Medical professionals were less sanguine, however. Asked about the president’s comments during an interview with CNN later on Thursday, Dr. Anthony Fauci — director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases — responded, “There’s no magic drug out there right now.”
Fauci added: “That doesn’t mean that we’re not going to do everything we can to make things that have even a hint of efficacy more readily available.”
The FDA has made it clear that hydroxychloroquine has not been approved for treating those infected with the Covid-19 coronavirus. "There are no FDA-approved therapeutics or drugs to treat, cure or prevent Covid-19."
However, the FDA does say that studies are under way to see if chloroquine can be effective in the treatment of Covid-19. It also says it has been directed by US President Trump to set up a large clinical trial to investigate the drug.
"There are no FDA-approved therapeutics or drugs to treat, cure or prevent Covid-19."
Hydroxychloroquine is well-known, and cheap and easy to produce. In treating malaria patients, the drug has been used to reduce fever and inflammation. It isn’t used for malaria today.
"Chloroquine seems to block the coronavirus in lab studies. There's some anecdotal evidence from doctors saying it has appeared to help," says James Gallagher, BBC health correspondent.
But crucially there have been no complete clinical trials which are important to show how the drug behaves in actual patients, although they are under way in China, the US, UK and Spain.
The World Health Organization says that so far there is no definitive evidence of its effectiveness, but it is part of the continuing trials.
"In order to know which therapies could work to treat the viral infection we need to undertake clinical trials to gain the full evidence to know whether they work or not," says Prof Trudie Lang, director of The Global Health Network at Oxford University.
