By Shannon Tiezzi
A Chinese pharmaceutical company working with Academy of Military Medical Sciences (AMMS), a PLA-affiliated research institution, claims to have developed an experimental cure for the Ebola virus. An outbreak of the deadly virus in west Africa has become a global health crisis. According to the World Health Organization, as of October 12 there had been 8,997 “confirmed, probable, and suspected cases” of Eboal and 4493 deaths in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Spain, and the United States. U.S. and Japanese firms also have experimental drugs that aim to cure Ebola, but this is the first drug developed by Chinese researchers.
Reuters reports that AMMS developed the experimental cure for Ebola, a drug known as JK-05. AMMS has partnered with Sihuan Pharmaceutical Holdings Group Ltd. to make JK-05 available on the market (it is currently only approved for emergency military use). Reuters reports that Sihuan’s chairman, Che Fengsheng, told investors that the company can file for approval with the Chinese Food and Drug Administration by the end of 2014. “They are looking at this very seriously … and we could get on the ‘green light’ track,” he said. Che noted that Sihuan’s close ties to the Chinese military would help speed up the approval process. Sihuan was originally a military scientific unit before being set up as a company in 2001.
According to Sihuan management, the drug has been in development for five years and has been effective in animal tests conducted on mice. As of yet, there have been no clinical trials of JK-05; the company plans to test the drug out first on Chinese nationals who have contracted the disease in Africa. Tests on African nationals would require international approval.
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