COVID-19 drug research may drag on into July: Fujifilm

Fujifilm Holdings Corp’s research on Avigan as a potential treatment for COVID-19 may drag on until July due to a lack of patients for trials, the company said.

After the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe gave up on getting approval for the drug by the end of May, the aim was to complete clinical trials this month.

But, reportedly, researchers have only been able to get around 70 per cent of the patients needed for the trials, and because it takes 28 days to get results.

The spokesman also informed that the company has the number of medical institutions that are cooperating in the trials.

Countries that have succeeded in curbing infections have sometimes paradoxically found it difficult to sustain clinical trials because of dwindling sample sizes for patients.