Relief Therapeutics announces supply deals while awaiting COVID-19 trial data

FILE PHOTO: The ultrastructural morphology exhibited by the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV), which was identified as the cause of an outbreak of respiratory illness first detected in Wuhan, China, is seen in an illustration released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. January 29, 2020. Alissa Eckert, MS; Dan Higgins, MAM/CDC/Handout via REUTERS.

Switzerland's Relief Therapeutics and U.S. partner NeuroRx said on Wednesday they struck deals with Bachem and Nephron Pharmaceuticals to supply and make a 50-year-old drug, aviptadil, that is in clinical trials against COVID-19.

Relief and NeuroRx said the pact with Switzerland's Bachem, to supply peptides, and U.S. generics maker Nephron, to manufacture aviptadil, also being called RLF-100 by the companies, is aimed at having supplies sufficient to treat 1 million patients, should the drug prove effective in the studies.

(This story has been refiled to correct date to September 30)

(Reporting by John Miller; Editing by Michael Shields)