Volume 31, No 11, Nov 2021

ISSN: 1001-0602 
EISSN: 1748-7838 2018 
impact factor 17.848* 
(Clarivate Analytics, 2019)

Volume 31 Issue 11, November 2021: 1212-1214   |  Open Access

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Design and development of an oral remdesivir derivative VV116 against SARS-CoV-2

Yuanchao Xie^1,† , Wanchao Yin^1,† , Yumin Zhang^2,† , Weijuan Shang² , Zhen Wang¹ , Xiaodong Luan^3,4,5 , Guanghui Tian⁶ , Haji A. Aisa^7,8 , Yechun Xu^1,7 , Gengfu Xiao^2,7 , Jia Li^1,7,9 , Hualiang Jiang^1,7,9 , Shuyang Zhang^3,4,5 , Leike Zhang^2,7,* , H. Eric Xu^1,7,* , Jingshan Shen^1,7,*

¹Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China
²State Key Laboratory of Virology, Wuhan Institute of Virology, Center for Biosafety Mega-Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, Hubei, China
³School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
⁴Department of Cardiology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Peking Union Medical College and Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing, China
⁵Tsinghua-Peking Center for Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
⁶Vigonvita Life Science Co., Ltd., Suzhou, Jiangsu, China
⁷University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
⁸Key Laboratory of Plant Resources and Chemistry in Arid Regions, Xinjiang Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi, Xinjiang, China
⁹State Key Laboratory of Drug Research, Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China
^†These authors contributed equally: Yuanchao Xie, Wanchao Yin, Yumin Zhang
Correspondence: Leike Zhang(zhangleike@wh.iov.cn)H. Eric Xu(eric.xu@simm.ac.cn)Jingshan Shen(shenjingshan@simm.ac.cn)

Dear Editor,

Since the declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic on March 11, 2020, this pandemic has been circulating for 17 months throughout the world, leading to more than 200 million infections and nearly 4.4 million deaths as of August 15, 2021. The pathogen of COVID-19 is a novel coronavirus named SARS-CoV-2, which shares ~79% genome sequence identity with SARS-CoV.1 At the early stage of the COVID-19 outbreak, SARS-CoV-2 caused great panic in the hardest-hit areas due to its high transmissibility and pathogenicity. To fight the COVID-19 crisis, drug repurposing was immediately pursued in order to find potential therapeutics. Until now, though some treatment options are available, there still lack effective antiviral agents. Vaccination is considered as the best way to control this global pandemic, but the emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants pose a great challenge to the protective efficacy of the existing vaccines. Hence, in the long run, finding an effective antiviral medication against the SARS-CoV-2 infection is a pressing need.

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41422-021-00570-1

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