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Shionogi Covid Pill Xocova Fails to Win Japan Panel Backing

  • This was the second expert review of Shionogi’s Covid drug
  • Approval would have created a domestic supply of the antiviral
Shionogi’s pharmaceutical research center in Toyoanaka, Japan.

Shionogi’s pharmaceutical research center in Toyoanaka, Japan.

Photographer: Soichiro Koriyama/Bloomberg
Updated on

Shionogi & Co.’s experimental Covid-19 treatment Xocova failed to win the backing of health experts in Japan who said there wasn’t enough data to show the medicine’s efficacy.

The panel members didn’t recommend that Japan’s health ministry authorize emergency use of the therapy as there was a need to continue discussion on it, Hiroshi Kiyota, chairman of the expert committee said in a briefing Wednesday. The health ministry relies on the panel’s decision to give the approval.