Old Oral Treatment Recommended for Severe COVID-19

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommended on January 14, 2022, new drugs for treating COVID-19. However, the extent to which these medicines will save lives depends on how widely available and affordable they are.

A once-daily drug, baricitinib, discovered by Incyte and licensed to Eli Lilly, is strongly recommended for patients with severe or critical COVID-19.

Baricitinib is part of a class of drugs called Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitors that suppress the overstimulation of the immune system. The WHO recommends that it be given with corticosteroids.

Baricitinib is an oral drug, Approved by the U.S. FDA in treating rheumatoid arthritis (RA). It provides an alternative to other arthritis drugs called Interleukin-6 receptor blockers. The WHO also recommended it for this use in July 2021.

Baricitinib (OLUMIANT) is approved and commercially available in more than 75 countries to treat adults with moderately to severely active RA.

And in more than 40 countries, including the European Union and Japan, it is authorized to treat adult patients with moderate to severe atopic dermatitis who are candidates for systemic therapy.

In 2021, Japan authorized Baricitinib to treat pneumonia associated with COVID-19 in hospitalized adult patients.

This recommendation, forming the eighth update of WHO’s living guidelines on therapeutics and COVID-19, is based on evidence from seven trials involving over 4,000 patients with non-severe, severe, and critical COVID-19.