A recent article published in the journal Science has shown that the already-promising drug candidate remdesivir, on trial now, exhibits promising activity against the COVID-19 causing virus and might work well in retarding virus replication.
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The SARS-CoV-2 virus exists as a mere strand of RNA and it requires a host to replicate. Scientists have discovered that the active site of RDRp shows striking similarities with the Polio Virus and the Hepatitis C virus, and using that knowledge, they have tried to use known drug candidates that work in that RDRp environment and work back to see if they are effective with the novel coronavirus. They also showed exactly where on the RNA dependent RNA polymerase — the main machinery to form strands of RNA — that this drug will bind with. Remdesivir, a nucleotide analogue, then acts as part of the growing RNA chain, fooling the virus into believing it is replicating, and thereby stops true replication.
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In the article “Structure of the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RDR