AUSTIN (KXAN) -- Drugs used to treat Hepatitis C could be the newest tool in the fight against coronavirus, according to new research from a University of Texas scientist.
Robert Krug, Professor Emeritus of Molecular Biosciences, partnered with researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York for the study, and their results were published in a paper published this week in Cell Reports.
They found combining certain Hepatitis C treatments with remdesivir -- which is currently the only COVID-19 therapeutic approved by the Food and Drug Administration in the United States -- can render the drug as much as ten times better at inhibiting the coronavirus in cell cultures.
Their findings mean this combination could be used as an antiviral treatment for COVID-19. Krug calls it "repurposing."
"Take a drug that's already out there, already approved. They know how it acts, and they know about its side effects. If you use it for a COVID cure, there will still be clinical trials but they will be very short," he explained. "This is to quickly get help."
However, Remdesivir must be administered intravenously -- meaning it has to be given in a hospital setting. That's why Krug said the next step would be finding an oral treatment that functions like remdesivir to pair with the oral Hepatitis drugs.
"You want to have pills that people can take, and they won't end up in the hospital," he said. "That's the goal."
Experts at FasterCures, a center of the Milken Institute, are tracking 326 compounds which could be developed into different kinds of coronavirus treatments. Executive Director Esther Krofah noted that while the vaccine is extremely important, therapeutics are essential to tackling this virus.
"What they really want to know in the back of their mind is: do I have something available to me if I get sick?"
KXAN's Avery Travis will have a closer look at therapeutics and treatments in development on KXAN News at 10 p.m.
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