Sun Pharma’s COVID-19 drug enters phase-II clinical trial⁠— it was first developed to treat dengue

• This comes after the Drugs Controller General of India gave permission to conduct phase-II clinical trials in April.
• Sun Pharma will conduct these trials on 210 patients across 12 centers in the country.
• The treatment using AQCH will take about 10 days and the results of these trials will be out by October this year.

Sun Pharma has started the second phase of a clinical trial on AQCH, a potential herbal medicine that could treat COVID-19. This comes after the Drugs Controller General of India gave permission to conduct phase-II clinical trials in April.

Sun Pharma will conduct these trials on 210 patients across 12 centers in the country. The treatment using AQCH will take about 10 days and the results of these trials will be out by October this year.

The stock rallied over 2.5% on Friday.

“This is the first phytopharmaceutical drug approved for clinical trials by the DCGI as a potential treatment for COVID-19. AQCH has shown anti-SARS-CoV-2 effects in in-vitro studies conducted in collaboration with ICGEB, Italy,” Dilip Shanghvi, Managing Director, Sun Pharma said.

Sanghvi believes AQCH, a drug being developed to treat dengue, has the potential treatment option for COVID-19 patients. The pancreatitis drug was first identified as a potential medicine for Covid-19 by researchers at University of Tokyo and Leibniz Institute for Primate Research, Germany.

Sun Pharma has joined the list of other pharma companies like Glenmark Pharmaceuticals and Strides Pharma Science conducting clinical trials for a drug candidate in India .

Ever since China’s scientists released the genome of novel coronavirus, researchers around the world have been racing to develop a vaccine to cure COVID-19. There are at least 70 research efforts underway to develop a coronavirus vaccine around the world. In India, as many as 30 groups are working on a vaccine candidate.

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