China grants approval for homegrown COVID-19 pills

China has recently granted conditional approval to two homegrown COVID-19 oral pills, the National Medical Products Administration said on Sunday.

One of the newly-approved medicines, XIANNUOXIN, was jointly developed by Simcere Pharmaceutical Group, headquartered in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, as well as Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Wuhan Institute of Virology and Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences.

According to the company, the novel drug is a combination of a small molecule anti-virus drug candidates and a dose of ritonavir, an antiretroviral medication already available on the market.

The other new medicine is VV116 and was developed by Shanghai Vinnerna Biosciences and other research institutes based in Shanghai.

The administration said that the two oral pills will be used for mild and moderate COVID-19 adult patients.

As of Jan 19, a total of 10 domestically made COVID-19 drugs had either been granted official or conditional market approval or were authorized to treat symptoms of the pathogen, according to the State Council's Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism.