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.
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.[1] This is one line of scientific research which is being pursued to develop safe and effective COVID-19 treatments.[2][3][4] Other research directions include the development of a COVID-19 vaccine[5] and convalescent plasma transfusion.[6]
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 [SARS-CoV-2] viruses are very similar, so testing drugs which target relatively generic parts of these coronaviruses is a logical step".[2]