Top COVID-19 aspirants chloroquine, AbbVie’s Kaletra and a flu drug disappoint in clinical tests.

Malaria drug chloroquine, AbbVie’s HIV combo therapy Kaletra and an influenza med called Arbidol are among top candidates that physicians are repurposing for the treatment of COVID-19. Despite backing from officials, though, the three have disappointed separately in two Chinese clinical trials of mild patients.

Hydroxychloroquine, a more tolerable form of chloroquine, didn’t top placebo at clearing the coronavirus among mild Chinese patients, or helping them reach normal temperature sooner, Evercore ISI analyst Umer Raffat noted in a Tuesday memo.

Separately, neither Kaletra—a combination of HIV antivirals lopinavir and ritonavir—nor Arbidol (umifenovir) delivered benefits in viral clearance or symptom relief compared with no antiviral treatment in a small Chinese study in mild-to-moderate COVID-19 patients, results published Monday on the preprint site medRxiv show.