Identification of putative drugs against viral respiratory infections by
the pharmacovigilance analysis tool OpenVigil 2
Abstract
Aim: Pharmacovigilance data are primarily used to identify adverse drug
reactions. However, scanning for associations of drugs and adverse
events that occur less frequently than expected provides hypotheses for
drug repurposing, i.e. a known drug could be therapeutically beneficial
for a new indication like the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Methods:
Drugs associated with viral respiratory tract infections and/or
influenza were extracted from the U.S. FAERS pharmacovigilance data
using OpenVigil2.1-MedDRA17, filtered for significant inverse
associations (punadj<0.05), checked for plausibility, and
categorised by their WHO Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical (ATC)
classification code. Results: ATC clustering of 82 candidate drugs
revealed anti-diabetics, neuropharmacologic sigma-receptor agonists,
peptidase inhibitors, kinase inhibitors and anti-androgens. Chloroquine
appears as a statistically significant risk factor for viral diseases
supporting actual knowledge. Conclusion: OpenVigil 2 delivers new
hypotheses for drug repurposing, theoretically for all indications.
There is affirmative data for some of our results; the remaining
proposed candidate drugs without already known antiviral mechanism of
action should stimulate further exploration.