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Zoloft Could Be a Treatment for Ebola Virus

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Researchers have identified two FDA-approved drugs that may be effective against the Ebola virus. This could shorten the time for developing new treatments.

HEALTHLINE NEWS  by  Shawn Radcliffe                                                         June 3, 2015

With a fast-moving epidemic like Ebola, doctors need to make use of every tool at their disposal. This includes giving a second life to already-approved drugs....

One research team is hoping to ease the epidemic by shortening the lengthy drug development process.

Their approach? Sifting through hundreds of existing drugs and other compounds for ones that might work against the Ebola virus....

Additional screening narrowed the list down to two potential drug candidates: Bepridil, a calcium channel blocker used to treat heart disease, and sertraline, an antidepressant more commonly known as Zoloft.

Both drugs are already approved by the FDA, although not for use against the Ebola virus.

Read complete story.

http://www.healthline.com/health-news/zoloft-could-be-a-treatment-for-ebola-virus-060315#1

A screen of approved drugs and molecular probes identifies therapeutics with anti–Ebola virus activity

 SCIENCE TRANSLATIONAL MEDICINE

Read study.

http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/7/290/290ra89

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QUARTZ  by  Akshat Rathi                                                                           June 4, 2015
....only drug trials will show whether these medications work to cure or prevent the disease in humans. And those trials are something that pharmaceutical companies aren’t likely to invest in, because both the drugs are off-patent.

“If the drug patent has expired, pharma companies won’t make money from it and thus won’t invest any money required for trials,” Jonathan Corcoran, a professor at Kings College London who has worked on drug repositioning, tells Quartz.

When a drug patent expires, no single company has an exclusive right over its sale. Thus, if one pharma company invests the millions required to run a human trial, other companies can then gin up their own generic version and profit from it, dividing up the market.

So as promising as this strategy seems, it likely could only work if government or philanthropical organizations invest money in the trials....

Read complete story.
http://qz.com/418692/drugs-to-treat-ebola-may-have-been-on-pharmacy-shelves-all-along/

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