(QCOSTARICA) Another new piece of news in the search for treatments to combat Covid-19: After more than five months of effort and 400 hours of work, the scientific staff of the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Costa Rica (UCR) managed to conclude successfully the development of the first 500 pilot tablets based on favipiravir, a compound that could help counteract the virus.
Favipiravir is an antiviral medication used to treat influenza in Japan.
Last May, Russia approved its generic version known as Avifavir, finding initial evidence that suggested an inhibitory effect on the replication of Covid-19 in the body.
While further clinical confirmation is still awaited, countries such as Japan, Russia, India, and China already use this drug to help patients mitigate the progression of the disease.
“The idea of us at the UCR is to generate knowledge so that Costa Rica can formulate the drug in the national territory, without depending on the foreigner. With this research project what we seek is to transfer knowledge so that a pharmaceutical company with industrial capacity can produce it ”, said German Madrigal, director of the Institute for Pharmaceutical Research (Inifar-UCR).
Additionally, dissolution kinetic tests will be performed. These tests are necessary to determine whether the release of the drug upon entering the human body occurs satisfactorily.