Despite significant funding and research effort, a vaccine against Covid-19 is unlikely to be ready until 2021. Similarly, novel drug development is too slow and impractical a progress to effectively tackle this global pandemic, which, at the time of writing, has killed almost 185,000 people globally A more immediate alternative approach is repurposing existing drugs; a strategy often used in the oncology space.
Borrowing drugs from other indications is a time saver because these drugs will already have proven themselves to be safe in pre-clinical and early clinical testing, meaning they can be fast-tracked straight into the final stage of clinical development, Phase III, to evaluate their safety and efficacy as Covid-19 treatment.