JNS: Zydus Cadila Pharmaceuticals has received approval from the Drugs Controller General of India -DCGI to begin the phase-III clinical trials with its biological therapy Pegylated Interferon alpha-2b (PegiHep) in COVID-19 patients, the company said in a statement.
PegiHep is an approved drug and is being re-purposed for the treatment of Covid-19.
The trials will be conducted on 250 patients across 25 centres in India during this month, sources said.
The Zydus Cadila Pharmaceuticals, an Ahmedabad-based healthcare company had completed the phase-2 clinical trial last month. The second phase trials indicated that this biological drug had a beneficial impact on the patient suffering from moderate Covid-19 disease by reducing their viral load.
A single dose therapy will improve compliance and make it highly affordable for patients.
Zydus has also completed the phase-II human clinical trials of its vaccine candidate- ZyCov-D for Covid-19 and its results are currently analysed, sources said.
