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# FDA Looks at Repurposing Older Drugs for Outbreak
- URL: https://www.fdaweb.com/fda-looks-at-repurposing-older-drugs-for-outbreak/
- Published: 2020-03-19T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-14T16:07:58.000Z
- Author: David McFarland
- Tags: Drugs, #legacy-id-D5146372

FDA commissioner **Stephen Hahn** says that FDA is looking at repurposing older drugs to treat or prevent coronavirus. During a 3/19 White House press briefing, Hahn said one drug of interest is the decades-old malaria drug chloroquine, which is made by several manufacturers, and its potential expanded use treat coronavirus. Hahn said FDA expects that a large pragmatic clincial trial is necessary to collect data on the drug to support the expanded use.

At the press briefing, president Trump confusingly said that chloroquine was approved and available for use. “Normally the FDA would take a long time to approve something like that, ... and it was approved very, very quickly and it’s now approved by prescription,” adding that the drug could be a “game changer, or maybe not.” After the briefing, FDA walked back the president’s remarks to clarify that the drug was not approved for coronavirus use.

Trump continues to be criticized for misleading statements associated with the coronavirus outbreak. “At the White House press conference today, president **Donald Trump** continued to spew misleading, overly optimistic and often incoherent statements about potential treatments for the coronavirus that may be on the horizon,” the advocacy group Public Citizen said after the press briefing. “He also displayed a remarkable ignorance of the Food and Drug Administration drug approval process. The president’s statements will only raise false hopes and sow confusion. Trump must stop his reality show approach to the coronavirus crisis and let qualified public health experts take the lead in truthfully informing the public about our government’s response to the pandemic.”

During the briefing, Hahn said that convalescent plasma may show promising results. FDA has worked with other countries who have been testing this therapy during the outbreak. Convalescent plasma uses blood from patients who have recovered from the coronavirus and then the immunoglobulins are given to newly infected patients. As for a timeline, Hahn said, “over the next couple of weeks, we'll have more information that we're really pushing hard to try to accelerate... and that will be a bridge to other therapies that will take us three to six months to develop. And this is a continuous process -- there is no beginning and end to each of these.”

Hahn also said that a vaccine Phase 1 trial just began this week, but approval will likely take a year, if it is safe and effective. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) allowed the new vaccine to be fast-tracked into clinical trials without thorough testing in animal models. The new vaccine is a collaboration between NIAID scientists and the biotechnology company Moderna Inc.

FDA is ready to work with developers to try and shorten development time from years to months, Hahn said. “We are trying to provide the regulatory flexibility, but at the same time the scientific oversight to make sure it gets done in the best way possible for the American people,” he added.

> After the briefing, FDA released a [statement](https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-covid-19-update-fda-continues-facilitate-development-treatments?utm%5Fcampaign=031920%5FPR%5FCoronavirus%20%28COVID-19%29%20Update%3A%20Chloroquine&utm%5Fmedium=email&utm%5Fsource=Eloqua) on many therapies being evaluated for use to combat the outbreak. For example, NIH began a [randomized controlled trial](https://www.niaid.nih.gov/news-events/nih-clinical-trial-remdesivir-treat-covid-19-begins?ref=fdaweb.com) for treating virus patients with Gilead Sciences’ investigational antiviral drug remdesivir. FDA says it has been working with the company to “find multiple pathways to both study the drug under the FDA’s investigational new drug requirements, and thus collect helpful data about the efficacy of the drug, as well as provide the drug to patients under emergency use. The FDA is committed to continuing to make use of its expanded access program to allow the emergency use of this product for those patients, when appropriate. To date, the agency has already granted about 250 patients access to this product.”  
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> Another promising area is interleukin-6 (IL-6) receptor inhibitors that may be helpful in reducing lung inflammation and improving lung function in coronavirus patients. The agency says Regeneron Pharmaceuticals has announced the initiation of a randomized controlled clinical trial of sarilumab, an antibody to the IL-6 receptor, to assess whether the modification of the inflammatory response by this treatment provides benefit to patients.