Drug firm Natco Pharma on Tuesday said it has donated chloroquine phosphate tablets through its marketing partner in the US to support a global clinical trial conducted by CROWN Collaborative in the wake of coronavirus pandemic.
The trial will examine whether the anti-malarial drug can protect essential healthcare workers from COVID-19 virus. The company has donated the tablets through Rising Pharmaceuticals. Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis is the clinical coordinating center for this trial, Natco Pharma said in a BSE filing.
COVID-19 Research Outcomes Worldwide Network (CROWN) Collaborative, is testing whether the anti-malaria drug chloroquine can prevent COVID-19 infection or decrease its severity in frontline healthcare workers, it added.
For the study, chloroquine will be donated to the US arm of the chloroquine repurposing to health-workers for novel coronavirus mitigation clinical trials, Natco Pharma said.
The collaborative and the trial are funded by the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator, an initiative with contributions from an array of public and philanthropic donors, including Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Natco Pharma said.
The trial aims to include at least 30,000 subjects across the frontline healthcare workers, it added. Natco has been supplying anti-malarial chloroquine phosphate tablets, a United States Food and Drug Administrtion (USFDA) approved drug, through its marketing partner to the US since 2011, the filing said.
