As the pandemic revealed the limits of reactive medicine, scientists at Scripps Research Institute turned to a vast library of existing drugs in search of something the world still lacks: a reliable oral antiviral against COVID-19. From more than 12,000 candidates, they identified 13 with meaningful promise — four already approved by the FDA — suggesting that the tools to fight this virus may have been hiding in plain sight, waiting to be combined in the right way.
Study identifies 13 drugs as potential COVID-19 treatment options
Speed matters, but only if built on diligence.
Mark
So they tested 12,000 drugs and found 13 that might work. That's a pretty small percentage. Does that feel like success?
Mimi
It depends on your baseline. They started with drugs already approved or tested for safety, so they weren't starting from scratch. And they didn't just find 13 that work—they found 90 that showed some activity, then filtered down to the 13 most promising as oral treatments.
Luke
Right, but we should be clear about what "most promising" means here. This is lab work in human cells, not human trials. These drugs stopped viral replication in a petri dish. That's a necessary step, but it's not the same as proving they work in actual patients.
Mimi
True. But the combination approach is interesting because it's proven in HIV. If you can use drugs that already exist and are already approved, you skip years of safety testing.
Mark
Four of the 13 are already FDA-approved. So theoretically, could doctors start using those now?
Luke
Not without clinical trials. FDA approval for one disease doesn't mean approval for another. You'd need to test them in COVID-19 patients to see if they're safe and effective in that context.
Mimi
But it does mean the safety profile is known. Doctors understand the side effects, the dosing, the interactions. That's valuable information going into trials.
Mark
What about the nine that are still in development? How long would those take?
Luke
That's unknown. Development timelines vary wildly. Some could move quickly; others might stall. The study doesn't give us a timeline.
Mimi
The researchers were careful to say this raises possibilities, not certainties. They're calling for rigorous testing. That's the honest position when you're at this stage.
O Pulso
- Despite effective vaccines, the absence of a reliable oral antiviral leaves millions vulnerable when infection takes hold — a gap this research directly targets.
- Scientists screened over 12,000 existing drugs, narrowing a field of 90 viable candidates down to 13 with the strongest potential as oral COVID-19 therapies.
- The most promising drugs don't work alone — they amplify remdesivir's power, echoing the combination-cocktail strategy that transformed HIV treatment decades ago.
- Four of the 13 drugs are already FDA-approved, meaning the path from discovery to patient use could be significantly shorter than starting from scratch.
- Researchers are urging caution alongside optimism: rigorous clinical testing remains the necessary next step before any of these candidates can reach patients.
As the pandemic revealed the limits of reactive medicine, scientists at Scripps Research Institute turned to a vast library of existing drugs in search of something the world still lacks: a reliable oral antiviral against COVID-19. From more than 12,000 candidates, they identified 13 with meaningful promise — four already approved by the FDA — suggesting that the tools to fight this virus may have been hiding in plain sight, waiting to be combined in the right way.
The hunt for a drug capable of stopping COVID-19 before it overwhelms the body has moved slowly — but a new study from Scripps Research Institute may mark a turning point. Publishing in Nature Communications, scientists screened more than 12,000 existing medications to identify which could block the virus from replicating inside human cells.
Of the 90 drugs that showed initial promise, 19 demonstrated a synergistic effect when paired with remdesivir, the antiviral already approved for COVID-19 treatment. From those, the team identified 13 as the most viable oral candidates, selected for their potency, safety profiles, and likely mechanisms of action. Four — halofantrine, nelfinavir, simeprevir, and manidipine — are already FDA-approved.
Two drugs drew particular attention: riboprine and 10-deazaaminopterin, both of which significantly enhanced remdesivir's ability to suppress the virus. The strategy mirrors what has worked in HIV medicine for decades — attacking infection from multiple angles simultaneously with drug cocktails.
Dr. Thomas Rogers of Scripps underscored that combination therapy is the gold standard in antiviral medicine. Peter Schultz, Scripps' president and CEO, acknowledged that while vaccines have changed the landscape, the world still needs effective oral antivirals to prevent infections and protect those most at risk. He was careful to note that speed must be paired with diligence — thorough testing, he argued, is not a delay but the surest path to treatments that will genuinely help.
The search for a drug that could stop COVID-19 before it overwhelms the immune system has been frustratingly slow. But researchers at Scripps Research Institute have now identified a set of candidates that might change that trajectory. In a study published in Nature Communications, scientists screened more than 12,000 existing medications—drugs already approved by the FDA or tested for human safety—to see which ones could block the virus from replicating inside infected human cells.
Out of that vast library, 90 drugs showed some ability to stop viral replication in at least one of the cell types they tested. That was promising, but the researchers went further. They looked for drugs that could work alongside remdesivir, an antiviral already approved for COVID-19 treatment. Nineteen drugs demonstrated this synergistic effect, amplifying remdesivir's power to suppress the virus.
From those 19, the team narrowed the field to 13 that seemed most viable as oral treatments. The selection criteria were rigorous: potency, likely mechanism of action, and safety profile. Four of the 13 are already FDA-approved medications—halofantrine, nelfinavir, simeprevir, and manidipine. The other nine are still in development pipelines at various stages.
Two drugs stood out for a different reason. Riboprine, which has been tested as a preventative for nausea and surgical infection, and 10-deazaaminopterin, a derivative of folic acid, both heightened remdesivir's ability to suppress the virus. The combination approach mirrors what has worked in HIV treatment for decades: giving patients multiple drugs at once to attack the infection from different angles.
Dr. Thomas Rogers, an adjunct assistant professor in immunology and microbiology at Scripps, emphasized this strategy in the study. The most effective antiviral approaches, he noted, are cocktails—multiple drugs working together. That model has proven itself over time in managing other viral infections.
Peter Schultz, president and CEO of Scripps Research, framed the findings as a potential pathway forward. Even with effective vaccines now available, he said, the world still lacks highly effective oral antivirals that can prevent COVID-19 infections or stop them from worsening once they start. The study suggests several existing medications could be repurposed for this role. But Schultz was careful to emphasize the next step: rigorous testing to determine what is actually safe and effective. Speed matters, he said, but only if it is built on diligence. That methodical approach, he argued, is the fastest route to therapies that will genuinely help patients.
Citações Notáveis
Some of the most effective antiviral strategies are 'cocktails' in which patients are given several different drugs to combat the infection, such as those used to treat HIV infections.— Dr. Thomas Rogers, Scripps Research Institute
While we now have effective vaccines against COVID-19, we still lack highly effective antiviral drugs that can prevent COVID-19 infections or stop them from worsening.— Peter Schultz, president and CEO of Scripps Research
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