TEHRAN – The anti-corona drug, remdesivir, produced by an Iranian knowledge-based company has the capacity to be exported to the neighboring countries, director of health technology development office of the Ministry of Health said, referring to the high quality of the drug.

The Iranian remdesivir medicine has been formulated and produced to cure COVID-19 patients and is currently undergoing legal registration with the Food and Drug Administration to enter the market by the next two weeks, IRNA quoted Hossein Vatanpour as saying on Saturday.

This knowledge-based company is ready for mass production of medicine, and the medicine will be provided to the country's hospitals after mass production, he noted.

By producing the raw material of this medicine in the country, while providing the required amount, it will also lead to a considerable amount of currency savings, he highlighted.

So far, no effective and reliable medicine has been identified for the treatment of coronavirus in the world, but remdesivir is prescribed for patients with this virus in Europe and the United States.

The broad-spectrum antiviral agent remdesivir is a nucleotide analog prodrug. On May 1, The U.S. FDA issued EUA of remdesivir to allow emergency use of the agent for severe COVID-19 (confirmed or suspected) in hospitalized adults and children. A phase 1b trial of an inhaled nebulized version was initiated in late June to determine if remdesivir can be used on an outpatient basis and at earlier stages of the disease.

Remdesivir was studied in clinical trials for Ebola virus infections but showed limited benefit. Remdesivir has been shown to inhibit replication of other human coronaviruses associated with high morbidity in tissue cultures, including severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) in 2003 and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) in 2012.

The number of people diagnosed with coronavirus in Iran reached 341,070 on Saturday, of whom 19,492 have died and 295,630 recovered so far. Over the past 24 hours, 2,245 new cases of people having the virus have been identified, and 161 died, Sima Sadat Lari ministry of health’s spokesman said.

Currently, 3,911 patients with coronavirus are in critical condition, she added.

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