Chi­na ap­proves flu drug be­ing tout­ed as a po­ten­tial coro­n­avirus treat­ment amid a rush of clin­i­cal stud­ies

One of the three drugs that Chi­na’s Min­istry of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy has tapped as po­ten­tial COVID-19 treat­ments to watch has notched its first Chi­nese OK — for the flu.

While there’s no proof yet that fapilavir, or favipi­ravir, is the cure that pa­tients and physi­cians are yearn­ing for, it stands out for a unique con­stel­la­tion of qual­i­ties. It’s been com­mer­cial­ly avail­able in Japan for sev­er­al years (un­like Gilead’s ex­per­i­men­tal remde­sivir) yet it’s new to Chi­na (un­like the malar­ia drug chloro­quine phos­phate). Per­haps more im­por­tant­ly, a do­mes­tic biotech — Zhe­jiang Hisun Phar­ma — owns the rights to man­u­fac­ture and mar­ket the drug, pre­empt­ing any con­cerns about patents.

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