Af­ter Pres­i­dent Trump on Thurs­day im­plied a decades-old malar­ia drug was sanc­tioned by the FDA to fight the new coro­n­avirus, re­ports emerged that late last year the drug’s mak­er dou­bled the price of the com­pound, but has now re­stored the orig­i­nal price tag as the virus en­velops much of the globe.

Made by New Jer­sey-based Ris­ing Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals — the drug, called chloro­quine phos­phate — saw a hike of rough­ly 98% to $7.66 for a 250 mg tablet, STAT and the Fi­nan­cial Times re­port­ed, cit­ing da­ta from re­search and pub­lish­ing firm El­se­vi­er.

As FDA com­mis­sion­er Stephen Hahn was forced to clar­i­fy that the drug was still be­ing eval­u­at­ed for use against coro­n­avirus on Thurs­day, the com­pa­ny sug­gest­ed the price hike came months ahead of the out­break snow­balled in­to a pan­dem­ic, and be­fore re­searchers be­gan to spec­u­late it might help in­fect­ed pa­tients.

The com­pa­ny — which in De­cem­ber agreed to pay a fine of more than $3 mil­lion af­ter be­ing charged with con­spir­ing to fix prices for a gener­ic hy­per­ten­sion drug — has re­vert­ed back to chloro­quine phos­phate’s orig­i­nal price set in 2015.

“As soon as we saw the in­crease in de­mand and the po­ten­tial that this was go­ing to be uti­lized in the way some folks are pro­ject­ing it to be, we re­scind­ed that price in­crease to the same price it has been on the mar­ket for since 2015,” an ex­ec­u­tive told the FT.

Al­though the drug is be­ing used as part of com­pas­sion­ate use pro­grams in some coun­tries, there is no de­fin­i­tive ev­i­dence sug­gest­ing it helps pa­tients in­fect­ed with the new coro­n­avirus, al­though even Tes­la founder Elon Musk — who has pre­vi­ous­ly sug­gest­ed the “dan­ger of pan­ic” still far ex­ceeds the dan­ger of coro­n­avirus — has tak­en no­tice of its promise.

Maybe worth con­sid­er­ing chloro­quine for C19 https://t.co/LEY­ob7Jofr

— Elon Musk (@elon­musk) March 16, 2020

The drug, now a gener­ic, is de­rived from the bark of the chin­chona tree and has been in use since World War II. It is un­der­stood to be gen­er­al­ly safe in mild-to-mod­er­ate cas­es, but can be tox­ic at high dos­es. Apart from its use against malar­ia, an ill­ness caused by a par­a­site and spread to hu­mans via mos­qui­to bites, the med­i­cine is al­so de­ployed for use in cer­tain au­toim­mune con­di­tions.

Ear­ly da­ta emerg­ing out of France, test­ing a less tox­ic de­riv­a­tive of chloro­quine — hy­drox­y­chloro­quine — on a few dozen pa­tients with Covid-19, sug­gest it may help curb the pe­ri­od that peo­ple with the dis­ease are in­fec­tious. Mean­while, Chi­na’s Min­istry of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy has al­so sug­gest­ed that chloro­quine phos­phate should be in­clud­ed in the stan­dard Covid-19 reg­i­men, af­ter show­ing promis­ing re­sults in tri­als across 10 hos­pi­tals.

On Thurs­day, Ger­man drug­mak­er Bay­er an­nounced in a press re­lease that it was do­nat­ing 3 mil­lion tablets of its ver­sion of chloro­quine phos­phate for use in US pa­tients.

For a look at all End­points News coro­n­avirus sto­ries, check out our spe­cial news chan­nel.

The FDA’s Oncology Center of Excellence has been a bright spot within the agency in terms of speeding new treatments to patients. That flexibility was on full display this morning as FDA released new draft guidance spelling out exactly how oncology drug developers can fulfill both the accelerated and full approval’s requirements with just a single randomized controlled trial.

While Congress recently passed legislation that will allow FDA to require confirmatory trials to be recruiting and ongoing prior to granting an accelerated approval, the agency is now making clear that the initial trial used to win the AA, if designed appropriately, can also serve as the trial for converting the accelerated approval into a full approval.

Digital therapeutics company Better Therapeutics announced on Thursday that it’s cutting 35% of its staff as it awaits FDA clearance for its first product.

The company, which launched eight years ago, is one of a growing group of companies seeking a digital alternative to traditional medicine. The space saw a record $7.5 billion in investments in 2021, according to Chris Dokomajilar at DealForma, with uses spanning ADHD, PTSD and other indications. However, private insurers have been slow to hop on board.