Fujifilm Makes Leap From Photography To Ebola Treatment
By Lori Clapper
Japan's Fujifilm announced Monday it is ready and willing to scale-up manufacture of its anti-influenza drug Avigan to help treat more Ebola patients worldwide.
Toyama Chemical Co., a group company of Fujifilm, is expanding its production of Avigan next month to meet overseas demand, with plans to put the drug into clinical trials in France and Guinea, Reuters reports. The company anticipates Avigan will be ready to treat Ebola in those countries in mid-November.
After the Japanese government approved Avigan to treat influenza in March 2014, more recent studies showed that the drug was indeed effective in combating the Ebola virus when tested in mice. It has already been utilized as an emergency treatment for a number of Ebola patients who were evacuated from several countries, including a French nurse who fully recovered from Ebola after taking Avigan. The drug works by blocking replication of viral genes inside an infected cell, and now scientists “have high hopes” to use it for a variety of diseases, including Ebola, West Nile, and Marburg virus.
If the trial shows the drug to be safe and effective, Fujifilm anticipates countries around the world will be requesting large quantities.
"If requested, we are ready to quickly produce mass amounts," Shigetaka Komori, Fujifilm's chief executive, told CNBC.
Fujifilm is a newcomer to the pharmaceutical industry. The company was forced to makeover its corporate structure in the wake of the digital age. Under Komori’s lead, Fujifilm branched out into pharmaceuticals and cosmetics to cushion the fall when the photo film market plummeted to one-twentieth of its peak revenue last year, CNBC reported.
Now all eyes are on Fujifilm’s pharmaceutical ventures as Avigan showed efficacy as a potential treatment for Ebola. The company has a stockpile to treat 20,000 people and 300,000 courses of Avigan’s active pharmaceutical ingredient.