Curley P, Neary M, Arshad U, Tatham L, Pertinez H, Box H, Rajoli RK, Valentijn A, Sharp J, Rannard SP, Owen A. Development of a highly sensitive bioanalytical assay for the quantification of favipiravir. bioRxiv [Preprint]. 2021 Feb 5:2021.02.03.429628. doi: 10.1101/2021.02.03.429628. PMID: 33564761; PMCID: PMC7872349.
Favipiravir (FAV; T-705) has been approved for use as an anti-influenza therapeutic and has reports against a wide range of viruses (e.g., Ebola virus, rabies and norovirus). Most recently FAV has been reported to demonstrate activity against SARS-CoV-2. Repurposing opportunities have been intensively studied with only limited success to date. If successful, repurposing will allow interventions to become more rapidly available than development of new chemical entities. Pre-clinical and clinical investigations of FAV require robust, reproducible and sensitive bioanalytical assay. Here, a liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry assay is presented which was linear from 0.78–200 ng/mL Accuracy and precision ranged between 89% and 110%, 101% and 106%, respectively. The presented assay here has applications in both pre-clinical and clinical research and may be used to facilitate further investigations into the application of FAV against SARS-CoV-2.