Huateng Pharma
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Nature: Leprosy Drug Clofazimine Effectively Inhibits Coronaviruses On March 16, 2021, Kwok-Yung Yuen and his team from the University of Hong Kong published a research paper in Nature titled Clofazimine broadly inhibits coronaviruses including SARS-CoV-2. The study showed that Clofazimine, a drug originally used to treat leprosy, can effectively combat new coronavirus infections in human cells and hamster models, and has a synergistic effect with Remdesivir. Clofazimine can be taken orally and has a comparatively low manufacturing cost. These characteristics make it a potentially attractive drug candidate for the new coronavirus.
In this study, the research team studied the effectiveness of Clofazimine against coronaviruses, which is a drug approved by the US FDA for marketing. It is used to treat leprosy by interfering with the nucleic acid metabolism of leprosy bacillus. It is a second-line anti-leprosy drug and used to treat tumor-type leprosy and borderline leprosy. It is suitable for people who are allergic to sulfone drugs or when bacteria are resistant to sulfones. It can control repeated attacks and it is not easy to cause leprosy reactions, so it can be used when other drugs cause leprosy reactions and cannot continue to be used. The research team found that Clofazimine can reduce the replication of two novel coronaviruses (new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome