PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Sangeun Jeon AU - Meehyun Ko AU - Jihye Lee AU - Inhee Choi AU - Soo Young Byun AU - Soonju Park AU - David Shum AU - Seungtaek Kim TI - Identification of antiviral drug candidates against SARS-CoV-2 from FDA-approved drugs AID - 10.1101/2020.03.20.999730 DP - 2020 Jan 01 TA - bioRxiv PG - 2020.03.20.999730 4099 - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/03/23/2020.03.20.999730.short 4100 - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/03/23/2020.03.20.999730.full AB - COVID-19 is an emerging infectious disease and was recently declared as a pandemic by WHO. Currently, there is no vaccine or therapeutic available for this disease. Drug repositioning represents the only feasible option to address this global challenge and a panel of 49 FDA-approved drugs that have been pre-selected by an assay of SARS-CoV was screened to identify potential antiviral drug candidates against SARS-CoV-2 infection. We found a total of 24 drugs which exhibited antiviral efficacy (0.1 µM < IC50 < 10 µM) against SARS-CoV-2. In particular, two FDA-approved drugs - niclosamide and ciclesonide – were notable in some respects. These drugs will be tested in an appropriate animal model for their antiviral activities. In near future, these already FDA-approved drugs could be further developed following clinical trials in order to provide additional therapeutic options for patients with COVID-19.