French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi said Friday it would offer 100 million doses of hydroxychloroquine, a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, to governments worldwide if studies show it can safely to be used to treat COVID-19 patients.
As of today, Sanofi has committed to donating 100 million doses of hydroxychloroquine to 50 countries around the world, and has begun to progressively deliver the medicine to authorities that have requested it.
In this global health emergency, Sanofi stands ready to assist as many countries as possible, starting with countries where its medicine is registered for current approved indications as well as countries where there are no hydroxychloroquine suppliers or countries with underserved populations.
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, Sanofi has received a growing number of requests from local governments around the world. The company is regularly evaluating its increasing supply capacity and re-assessing how best to help those countries in the most ethical way. Sanofi’s priority is to ensure supply continuity for patients treated under the current approved indications of the medicine, notably including lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, while working hard to supply governments wishing to increase stocks in the hope that it may be an effective treatment of COVID-19.
Sanofi will continue to donate the medicine to governments and hospital institutions if ongoing clinical studies demonstrate its efficacy and safety in COVID-19 patients.
Both hydroxychloroquine, which Sanofi sells under the brand name Plaquenil, and the related compound chloroquine, an anti-malarial drug, are being studied worldwide as potential weapons in the coronavirus fight.
But proposals to put them to use immediately for more patients have proven highly controversial, with many experts warning there is not yet enough evidence of their safety or effectiveness against COVID-19.
A French doctor in particular, Didier Raoult, has raised hopes by treating patients with a combination of hydroxychloroquine (HQC) and the antibiotic azithromycin, an initiative that many health officials refuse to endorse in the absence of more rigorous studies.
On Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron met Raoult and his team in Marseille to discuss their latest findings, though the president did not comment publicly on the meeting afterward.
Sanofi acknowledged that “interpretations of the available preliminary data on hydroxychloroquine in the management of COVID-19 differ widely.
Other companies have also pledged to offer the drugs, with Switzerland’s Novartis proposing 130 million doses of chloroquine, and Israeli generic producer Teva promising 10 million doses of HQC for US hospitals.
Sanofi is also working on a potential vaccine for the new coronavirus, which has killed more than 94,000 people worldwide since cases were first reported in China last December.
