High-throughput screening and evaluation of repurposed drugs targeting the SARS-CoV-2 main protease
Yan Li, Jinyong Zhang, Zilei Duan, Ning Wang, Xiangcheng Sun, Yanjing Zhang, Li Fu, Kaiyun Liu, Yongjun Yang, Shulei Pan, Yun Shi, Hao Zeng, Gang Guo, Ren Lai, Quanming Zou · Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy · 2021
To date, a number of clinically approved drugs have been evaluated for potential to treat coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), such as lopinavir/ritonavir, hydroxychloroquine, cobicistat, and darunavir. Some of these drugs have been proven to be effective in vitro; however, clinical trials showed that none of these compounds led to a significant improvement in symptoms or length of hospitalization. Thus, it is essential and more reliable to start from a defined target to identify candidate drugs.