Host: The Japanese Society of Toxicology
A remarkable aspect of the otherwise terrible covid pandemic we are now experiencing is that medical technologies, both vaccine and therapeutic, had been in development that suddenly became front-line tools in public health efforts to control spread of disease and to treat victims of the infection. The messenger RNA-based vaccines have gone from experimental to game-changer in amazing time. Other therapeutics, such as monoclonal antibodies, have proven useful, although convalescent plasma remains an unproven treatment. Finally, there are drugs that have been developed and were abandoned for various reasons that are being re-examined for activity against coronaviruses. These issues will be discussed, including potential late-developing issues. When nonclinical data become available for products currently being distributed in the US under Emergency Use Authorization, these findings may be compared with clinical experience to assess the risk of expedited product development in the context of a global public health emergency.
