Ebola Virus Infection: a review on the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties of drugs considered for testing in human efficacy trials

Abstract

The 2014–2015 outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD) is the largest epidemic to date in terms of number of cases, of death and affected areas. In October 2015, no antiviral agents had proven an antiviral efficacy in patients. However in September 2014 WHO inventoried and regularly updated since then a list of potential drug candidates with demonstrated antiviral efficacy in vitro or in animal models. This includes agents belonging to various therapeutic classes, namely direct antiviral agents (favipiravir and BCX4430), combination of antibodies (ZMapp), type I interferons, RNA interference-based drugs (TKM-Ebola and AVI-7537) and anticoagulant drug (rNAPc2).

Here, we review the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic information that are presently available on these drugs, using data obtained in healthy volunteers for pharmacokinetics and data obtained in human clinical trials or animal models for pharmacodynamics. Future studies evaluating these drugs in clinical trials will be critical to confirm their efficacy in humans, propose appropriate doses and evaluate the possibility of treatment combinations.