New Delhi: India’s drug regulator has approved Itolizumab, a drug used to cure skin ailment psoriasis, for “restricted emergency use” to treat COVID-19 patients with moderate to severe acute respiratory distress.
Considering the unmet medical needs to treat COVID-19, Drugs Controller General of India, Dr VG Somani, approved the monoclonal antibody injection Itolizumab, on Friday, officials said.
“The approval was given after its clinical trials on COVID-19 patients in India were found satisfactory by an expert committee comprising pulmonologists, pharmacologists and medicine specialists from AIIMS, among others, for treatment of cytokine release syndrome,” PTI quoted an unnamed official as saying.
“It is already an approved drug of Biocon for treating psoriasis for last many years,” the official added.
He also informed that written informed consent of each patient is required before the use of this drug.
