Drugs used to treat hepatitis C may be valuable in the fight against COVID-19, according to a new study by researchers in Texas and New York.

According to NBC affiliate KXAN-TV in Austin, Texas, Dr. Robert Krug, a professor at the Center of Infectious Disease at the University of Texas, along with scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, found that combining specific hepatitis C treatments with remdesivir boosts that drug’s performance tenfold. Remdesivir, a broad-spectrum antiviral drug is currently the only COVID-19 treatment approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

The researchers published their findings in Cell Reports, saying that they found certain hepatitis C drugs inhibit SARS-CoV-2 activity while boosting the efficacy of remdesivir’s antiviral powers. SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes COVID-19. The beauty of this discovery is that the drugs used in their study have already been approved by the Food and Drug Administration and are merely being repurposed, said Dr. Krug.

"Take a drug that’s already out there, already approved. They know how it acts, and they know about the side effects. If you use it for a COVID cure, there will still be clinical trials, but they will be very short," he said, according to KXAN.

Since remdesivir is given intravenously in a hospital or clinic setting, Krug said that the next step is developing an oral treatment that works like remdesivir to pair with the oral hepatitis C treatments.

"You want to have pills that people can take, and they won’t land up in the hospital," he said. "That’s the goal."

Hopefully, there will soon be a COVID-19 drug that you can pickup at the pharmacy like Tamiflu or Xofluza that treat the influenza virus, according to KXAN. Dr. Krug is the scientist who helped research and develop Xofluza. Experts say that since the begging of the pandemic, there has not been a lot of emphasis and research into COVID-19 treatments since most of the focus was on developing a vaccine. The major research money was funneled into Operation Warp Speed during the Trump administration which created the COVID-19 vaccines authorized today.

Krug and the New York researchers have not begun clinical trials on their study findings but said they would welcome any clinicians willing to conduct further studies on the combination of Hepatitis C drugs and remdesivir. They said they hope to have a drug available to help COVID-19 patients.

"This is to quickly get help," he said, KXAN reports.