Title:A Review on Remdesivir: A Broad-spectrum Antiviral Molecule for Possible COVID-19 Treatment
Volume: 21
Issue: 17
Author(s): Jabeena Khazir, Tariq Maqbool and Bilal Ahmad Mir*
Affiliation:
- Department of Botany, Kargil Campus, University of Kashmir (Kargil), J&K,India
Keywords:
Coronavirus, COVID-19, remdesivir, therapeutic molecules, drug re-purposing, therapeutics.
Abstract: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), a novel coronavirus
strain and the causative agent of COVID-19 was emerged in Wuhan, China, in December 2019 [1].
This pandemic situation and magnitude of suffering have led to global effort to find out effective
measures for discovery of new specific drugs and vaccines to combat this deadly disease. In addition
to many initiatives to develop vaccines for protective immunity against SARS-CoV-2, some of which
are at various stages of clinical trials, researchers worldwide are currently using available conventional
therapeutic drugs with the potential to combat the disease effectively in other viral infections and it
is believed that these antiviral drugs could act as a promising immediate alternative. Remdesivir
(RDV), a broad-spectrum anti-viral agent, initially developed for the treatment of Ebola virus (EBOV)
and known to showed promising efficiency in in vitro and in vivo studies against SARS and MERS
coronaviruses, is now being investigated against SARS-CoV-2. On May 1, 2020, The U.S. Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) granted Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for RDV to treat COVID-
19 patients [2]. A number of multicentre clinical trials are on-going to check the safety and efficacy of
RDV for the treatment of COVID-19. Results of published double blind, and placebo-controlled trial
on RDV against SARS-CoV-2, showed that RDV administration led to faster clinical improvement in
severe COVID-19 patients compared to placebo. This review highlights the available knowledge
about RDV as a therapeutic drug for coronaviruses and its preclinical and clinical trials against
COVID-19.