Sun Pharma To Test Drug In Covid Cases

It has already started making the medicine to reduce delivery time

- 

Indian pharma giant Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd announced on Friday that it has received approval from the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) to initiate a clinical trial with Nafamostat Mesilate in COVID-19 patients. Nafamostat is approved in Japan for the improvement of acute symptoms of pancreatitis and treatment of Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation (DIC).

The approval came after a group of scientists from the University of Tokyo, Japan, and Leibniz Institute for Primate Research, Germany, recently demonstrated that Nafamostat, at very low concentrations, suppresses a protein that COVID-19 virus uses to enter human lung cells.

The company joins other Indian drugmakers Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Ltd and Strides Pharma Science Ltd that are conducting trials in India for potential drugs for COVID-19, which currently has no approved treatment or vaccine.