Experimental Drug That Kills The Flu In 24 Hours May Come To U.S. Next Year

Amid the worst flu-season in nearly a decade, a Japanese drugmaker is hard at work conducting late stage trials on a pill that they say can kill the flu virus within a day - a third of the time it takes Roche AG's Tamiflu.

Both drugs take roughly the same amount of time to completely contain flu symptoms, but Shionogi says its treatment provides immediately relief much faster. Considering that the U.S. has been hit by one of the worst flu epidemics in years, with the most intense rates of transmission since 2009, the Japanese company's treatment can't come quickly enough.

The experimental treatment developed by the 140-year-old Osaka-based drugmaker requires a single dose, as opposed to two daily doses of Tamiflu for five days. If the drug is as fast as the company claims, it could mean the difference between life and death for at-risk flu sufferers while cutting down the window of active transmission for contagion.

A spokesman for Roche - which holds the international license to distribute the experimental drug, said the Shionogi treatment had proven "significantly faster" at killing the flu, more conveniently, and that the compound offered "improved tolerability" vs. Tamiflu.

The drug was developed as an offshoot of a blockbuster anti-HIV drug, working to block the flu virus from hijacking a cell's internal mechanism, according to Chief Executive Isao Teshirogi.

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