ArticleJMIR public health and surveillance2020
Delivering Benefits at Speed Through Real-World Repurposing of Off-Patent Drugs: The COVID-19 Pandemic as a Case in Point.
Article in JMIR public health and surveillance, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT06008860 (A Pilot Clinical Evaluation of Astepro® Nasal Spray for Management of Early SARS-CoV-2 Infection), which is not on this map. Cited by 24 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
A Pilot Clinical Evaluation of Astepro® Nasal Spray for Management of Early SARS-CoV-2 Infection
Who cites it
24 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 44 citations in OpenAlex.
- Histamine receptors and COVID-19.Inflammation research : official journal of the European Histamine Research Society ... [et al.] · 2021Pooled it
- Histamine receptor 2 blockade selectively impacts B and T cells in healthy subjects.Scientific reports · 2021Trial
- Translational Success and Pharmacoeconomic Lessons of Pandemic-Driven Drug Repurposing.Cureus · 2025Review
- Article
- Old drugs, new tricks: leveraging known compounds to disrupt coronavirus-induced cytokine storm.NPJ systems biology and applications · 2022Article
- Efficacy of tadalafil on improvement of men with erectile dysfunction caused by COVID-19: A randomized placebo-controlled trial.Asian journal of urology · 2022Article
- Multi-organ damage by covid-19: congestive (cardio-pulmonary) heart failure, and blood-heart barrier leakage.Molecular and cellular biochemistry · 2021Review
- Could cilostazol be beneficial in COVID-19 treatment? Thinking about phosphodiesterase-3 as a therapeutic target.International immunopharmacology · 2021Review
- Famotidine Use Is Not Associated With 30-day Mortality: A Coarsened Exact Match Study in 7158 Hospitalized Patients With Coronavirus Disease 2019 From a Large Healthcare System.Gastroenterology · 2021Article
- Identification of antiviral antihistamines for COVID-19 repurposing.Biochemical and biophysical research communications · 2021Article
- Could Oral Phosphodiesterase 5 Inhibitors Have a Potential Adjuvant Role in Combating COVID-19 Infection?Sexual medicine reviews · 2021Review
- Hydroxychloroquine in the COVID-19 pandemic era: in pursuit of a rational use for prophylaxis of SARS-CoV-2 infection.Expert review of anti-infective therapy · 2021Article
- Commonalities Between COVID-19 and Radiation Injury.Radiation research · 2021Review
- Drug Repurposing Approach, Potential Drugs, and Novel Drug Targets for COVID-19 Treatment.Journal of environmental and public health · 2021Review
- Molecular basis of quercetin as a plausible common denominator of macrophage-cholesterol-fenofibrate dependent potential COVID-19 treatment axis.Results in chemistry · 2021Article
- The Hyperlipidaemic Drug Fenofibrate Significantly Reduces Infection by SARS-CoV-2 in Cell Culture Models.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2021Article
- The recent outbreaks of human coronaviruses: A medicinal chemistry perspective.Medicinal research reviews · 2021Review
- Exercise as medicine for COVID-19: On PPAR with emerging pharmacotherapy.Medical hypotheses · 2020Article
- Approaching coronavirus disease 2019: Mechanisms of action of repurposed drugs with potential activity against SARS-CoV-2.Biochemical pharmacology · 2020Review
- Repurposing existing drugs for COVID-19: an endocrinology perspective.BMC endocrine disorders · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Real-world drug repurposing-the immediate "off-label" prescribing of drugs to address urgent clinical needs-is a widely overlooked opportunity. Off-label prescribing (ie, for a nonapproved indication) is legal in most countries and tends to shift the burden of liability and cost to physicians and patients, respectively. Nevertheless, health crises may mean that real-world repurposing is the only realistic source for solutions. Optimal real-world repurposing requires a track record of safety, affordability, and access for drug candidates. Although thousands of such drugs are already available, there is no central repository of off-label uses to facilitate immediate identification and selection of potentially useful interventions during public health crises. Using the current coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic as an example, we provide a glimpse of the extensive literature that supports the rationale behind six generic drugs, in four classes, all of which are affordable, supported by decades of safety data, and targeted toward the underlying pathophysiology that makes COVID-19 so deadly. This paper briefly summarizes why cimetidine or famotidine, dipyridamole, fenofibrate or bezafibrate, and sildenafil citrate are worth considering for patients with COVID-19. Clinical trials to assess efficacy are already underway for famotidine, dipyridamole, and sildenafil, and further trials of all these agents will be important in due course. These examples also reveal the unlimited opportunity to future-proof our health care systems by proactively mining, synthesizing, cataloging, and evaluating the off-label treatment opportunities of thousands of safe, well-established, and affordable generic drugs.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.