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Ministry expands Covid-19 drug research

Image: NIAID [CC BY 2.0] via Flickr

German funding injection to boost work on future therapies targeted at coronavirus

Germany’s research ministry is increasing financial support for a programme developing therapeutic methods to tackle Covid-19.

The ministry announced last week that it will relaunch the funding programme Research and Development of Urgently Needed Therapeutics against Sars-CoV-2, with added funds. Its initial annual budget of €50 million will be topped up with another €40m.

In addition to vaccines, effective therapeutics are needed to cope with the Covid-19 pandemic, said research minister Anja Karliczek. In the first round of the programme it had become apparent that some promising projects needed more time to meet the funding requirements—a problem the revised programme seeks to address, Karliczek said.

The programme funds approaches such as the clinical testing of drug candidates to tackle the virus and treatments against severe cases of Covid-19, the ministry said.  

The money can also be used to support the production of experimental medicinal products in accordance with manufacturing regulations and early clinical trials. It complements another programme, run together with the health ministry, which addresses the later phases of drug development. 

The programme will run until June 2024, but could be extended, the ministry said.