FDA looking into expanding list of drugs for COVID-19 emergency use

The Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) said Thursday, April 22, that it is looking into prospects of adding more drugs for emergency use on novel coroavirus disease (COVID-19) cases.

FDA director-general Eric Domingo told lawmakers in the House of Representatives that the agency is already exploring the possibilities to expand the list of its drug products under emergency use (DEU) amid the pandemic.

"We have expanded our living guideline to include more groups... so they could include it and study the living guidelines to increase DEU," he said in Pilipino during the virtual hearing of the House committee on good government and public public accountability. Domingo referred to the Health Technology Assessment Council (HTAC), the University of the Philippines' National Institutes of Health (UP-NIH) and other advisory bodies tapped by the government to recommend guidelines on the use of drug products for COVID-19 treatment.

DEUs, he explained, are issued for registered and repurposed investigational drugs.

He added that the registration of drugs for DEU should be based o the Philippine COVID-19 Living Recommendation, which provides an up-to-date review of scientific evidence and consolidates recommendations from medical societies and institution on the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of the coronavirus infection.