Russian drug Avifavir effective against corona virus variants: ChemRar Group

Avifavir is effective against various variants of coronavirus, including Delta and Omicron, as it affects the highly conservative and mutation-resistant replication systems of RNA virus (RdRp), a statement from ChemRar Group said.

The drug affects the highly conservative and mutation-resistant replication systems of RNA virus (RdRp) via three complementary mechanisms, resulting in complete blockade of the viral infection, added the statement.

It also said that the virus is incapable of developing resistance to favipiravir even with long-term exposure on infected cells, as has been confirmed in clinical trials which provides Avifavir with a major advantage not only over highly specific biologics, but also over many other similar nucleoside products prone to inducing rapid evolution of resistant clinical variants.

A meta analysis of 23 COVID-19 treatment studies for favipiravir is demonstrating a 47 per cent improvement when favipiravir is used in early treatment of coronavirus, the statement mentioned.

It further notified that in June 2020, with the support of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), ChemRar Group specialists developed, and were the first in the world to release Avifavir, a direct antiviral for COVID-19 treatment, to the Russian and international markets. The product’s efficacy has been confirmed in a full-scale clinical trial in Russia involving 460 COVID patients. The drug has been supplied to more than 15 countries around the world.

Clinical trials of Avifavir have demonstrated its anti-COVID properties, such as alleviating symptoms and cut the duration of the disease by half compared to standard therapy, said the statement.

In addition, the results of Avifavir in patients with COVID-19 are being closely monitored in real-world clinical practice. A retrospective review of favipiravir’s efficacy and safety is currently underway in 40,000 patients exposed to the product in an outpatient or inpatient setting, according to the statement.

In 2020–2021, potential of favipiravir against coronavirus infection was actively investigated in more than 50 clinical trials involving around 5,000 patients in Russia, Japan, China, India, Thailand, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, EU countries and Latin America. To date, the PubMed database of international medical and biological literature contains almost 900 peer-reviewed favipiravir-related papers. At least 700 of these were published in the last 1.5 years.

Elena Yakubova, Medical Director, ChemRar Group, commented, “Having accumulated extensive experience with Avifavir in patients infected with COVID both from clinical trials and real-world clinical practice, we see that taking Avifavir in the first three-to-five days after infection leads to a milder disease in most cases and prevents hospitalisation. Over the past 17 months, more than four million patients have been treated with favipiravir worldwide. The product was well-tolerated with no new adverse events, which confirms the high safety of favipiravir.”