Covid: Hepatitis C drug in combination with remdesivir is more effective

April 28, New York (SocialNews.XYZ) Researchers in the United States have found that the combination of remdesivir, which is currently approved for the treatment of patients with Covid-19, and a reusing drug for hepatitis C virus (HCV) is the virus that causes the coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. We have found a 10x increase in speed. ..

The study, published in Cell Reports, showed that combining four HCV drugs (simeprevir, vaniprevir, paritaprevir, and glazoprevir) with remdesivir increased drug efficacy by a factor of 10.

The combination therapy has shown a way to treat unvaccinated people who have been infected or who have been vaccinated with weakened immunity due to the emergence of viral variants that escape immune protection. The team said.

“Because these HCV drugs are already approved for use and their potential side effects are known, such combination therapies can be tested in humans faster than new drugs,” said Robert M., a professor at the University of Texas. Krug says.

One of the drawbacks of remdesivir is that it requires intravenous administration and is restricted to patients who are already hospitalized.

“Our goal is to develop a combination of oral medications that can be given to outpatients before they become ill enough to require hospitalization,” says Krug. “HCV drugs that increase the antiviral activity of remdesivir are oral drugs. To develop effective outpatient treatment, it is important to identify oral drugs that inhibit SARS-CoV-2 polymerase.”

The team used a supercomputer to model how the drug binds to viral proteins and predicted that 10 HCV drugs would bind exactly to the SARS-CoV-2 protease. Researchers tested seven of these drugs in a safe biocontainment facility for their ability to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 virus replication in culture-growing monkey and human cells.

All seven HCV drugs inhibited viral replication, but what surprised the entire team was that four of them inhibited a completely different type of SARS-CoV-2 protease called papain-like protease. And the difference proved to be important. When each of the seven HCV drugs was tested for viral inhibition in combination with remdesivir, the team explained that only four that targeted unexpected proteases increased the efficacy of remdesivir by a factor of 10.

Source: IANS

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