covid-19 drug repurposing research covid-19 drug repurposing research drug repositioning (also known as drug repurposing, re-profiling, re-tasking, or therapeutic switching) is the repurposing of an approved drug for the treatment of a different disease or medical condition than that for which it was originally developed. this is one line of scientific research which is being pursued to develop safe and effective covid-19 treatments. other research directions include the development of a covid-19 vaccine and convalescent plasma transfusion. this article is about drugs that may be repurposed for treating covid-19. for covid-19 vaccines, see covid-19 vaccine. for potential therapeutic drugs for covid-19, see covid-19 drug development. part of a series on thecovid-19 pandemicscientifically accurate atomic model of the external structure of sars-cov-2. each "ball" is an atom. covid-19 (disease) sars-cov-2 (virus) cases deaths timeline 2019 2020 january responses february responses march 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tourism video games by country canada india ireland malaysia new zealand russia uk us by sport association football baseball basketball combat sports cricket disc golf gaelic games gridiron football ice hockey motorsport rugby league impacts animals black people crime death rates by country disability domestic violence emergency evacuations education female environment hospitals language lgbt community long-term care media coverage mental health symptoms migration military notable deaths other health issues politics diplomacy popular culture protests pregnancy prisons religion catholic church hajj science and technology social media strikes suicides telehealth xenophobia and racism society ireland malaysia new zealand russia uk us covid-19 portal several existing antiviral medications, previously developed or used as treatments for severe acute respiratory syndrome (sars), middle east respiratory syndrome (mers), hiv/aids, and malaria, have been researched as potential covid-19 treatments, with some moving into clinical trials. in a statement to the journal nature biotechnology in february 2020, us national institutes of health viral ecology unit chief vincent munster said, "the general genomic layout and the general replication kinetics and the biology of the mers, sars and viruses are very similar, so testing drugs which target relatively generic parts of these coronaviruses is a logical step". background outbreaks of novel emerging infections such as covid-19 pose unique challenges to discover treatments appropriate for clinical use, given the small amount of time available for drug discovery. since the process of developing and licensing a new drug for covid-19 was expected to pose a particularly long delay, researchers have been probing the existing compendium of approved antivirals and other drugs as a cost-effective strategy in the meantime. in early 2020 hundreds of hospitals and universities began their own trials of existing safe drugs with repurposing potential against covid-19. drug repurposing usually requires three steps before taking the drug across the development pipeline: recognition of the right drug; systematic evaluation of the drug effect in clinical models; and estimation of usefulness in phase ii clinical trials. one approach used in repositioning is to look for drugs that act through virus-related targets such as the rna genome (i.e. remdesivir). another approach concerns drugs acting through polypeptide packing (i.e. lopinavir). the rush to publish papers about the pandemic resulted in some scandals of inaccurate scientific publications. some early studies reporting the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine and remdesivir convinced drug agencies such as food and drug administration (fda) and european medicines agency to approve the off-label use by issuing emergency use authorizations which were later revoked as new evidence showed these drugs have no effect on the course of covid-19. these false-positive results can be explained in terms of the base-rate fallacy and the rapid changes in clinical guidance regarding covid-19 treatment could have been avoided if mechanistic evidence for and against repurposing candidates were carefully assessed and the standard evidence amalgamation tools such as meta-analysis were routinely applied. monoclonal antibodies monoclonal antibodies under investigation for repurposing include anti-il-6 agents (tocilizumab) and anti-il-8 (bms-986253). (this is in parallel to novel monoclonal antibody drugs developed specifically for covid-19.) mavrilimumab is a human monoclonal antibody that inhibits human granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor receptor (gm-csf-r). it has been studied to see if it can improve the prognosis for patients with covid-19 pneumonia and systemic hyperinflammation. one small study indicated some beneficial effects of treatment with mavrilimumab compared with those who were not. in january 2021, the uk national health service issued guidance that the immune modulating drugs tocilizumab and sarilumab were beneficial when given promptly to people with covid-19 admitted to intensive care, following research which found a reduction in the risk of death by 24%. tocilizumab