Why a Heartburn Drug Is Being Studied as a COVID-19 Treatment, According to Doctors
As part of a clinical trial, patients at New York City’s Northwell Health have been receiving famotidine intravenously, at, says Matthew Libassi, a spokesperson for Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research at Northwell Health. The trial is aiming to enroll 1,174 people and Libassi says that more than 180 patients who are hospitalized with the virus are currently enrolled.
As of now, there isn’t much information on what, exactly, this drug can do, and Libassi says it’s too soon to comment on how well the trial is going. But why are experts looking at famotidine as a possible COVID-19 treatment in the first place? Here’s what you need to know.
But, again, that particular study has not been peer-reviewed or even published. “This was not a rigorously tested finding, only an anecdotal observation,” says, an assistant professor of pharmacology and toxicology at Michigan State University. “Famotidine is cheaper than omeprazole, so there are many socioeconomic variables that could also be responsible for the observed effect.” This is one of many things that would need to be controlled for if the study moved on to peer review.
But there are other theories around a potential mechanism. “The current hypothesis for why famotidine may be effective in treating coronavirus is that it may bind to a viral enzyme that helps the virus replicate,” explains
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