Natco Pharma has donated chloroquine phosphate tablets through its marketing partner in the U.S., Rising Pharmaceuticals, to support a global clinical trial conducted by the CROWN Collaborative, for protecting essential healthcare workers from COVID-19.
Stating this, a release from the Hyderabad-headquartered drug maker said Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis is the clinical coordinating centre for this ambitious international trial. The group, called the 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. For this study, chloroquine will be donated to the U.S. arm of the Chloroquine RepurpOsing to healthWorkers for Novel CORONAvirus mitigaTION (CROWN CORONATION) clinical trial.
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 the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Conducted at multiple sites in North America, Europe, the U.K. and Africa, CROWN CORONATION will evaluate the protective potential of weekly, twice weekly or daily doses of chloroquine, when compared with placebo, in frontline healthcare workers at high risk of exposure to SARS-CoV-2. The trial aims to include at least 30,000 subjects across the frontline healthcare workers.
The release said Natco Pharma has been supplying chloroquine phosphate tablets, which is an USFDA approved drug, through its marketing partner to the U.S since 2011. Recently, Natco’s alternate facility in Visakhapatnam has also been approved to supply the same drug.