Studies by most authoritative medical institutions in the world show that ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) has unexpected therapeutic effects on diseases that cannot be treated in medicine at present. In the late 1980s, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officially approved ursodeoxycholic acid as a drug for treating liver diseases. At present, the patent period of this drug has expired, and now it can be obtained as a generic drug.

On December 5th, 2022, the research team of Cambridge University published a research paper entitled "FXR inhibition may protect from SARS-CoV-2 infection by reducing ACE 2" in the top international journal Nature. This study found that ursodeoxycholic acid, a drug for treating liver diseases, can close ACE2 receptor and the door of virus entering cells. This drug can be used to prevent COVID-19 infection. As this drug targets host cells instead of viruses, it may prevent future new variants of viruses and other coronaviruses that may appear.

Based on these evidences, the research team is optimistic that ursodeoxycholic acid is likely to become an important weapon against Covid-19.

At present, ursodeoxycholic acid supplied in the market is mostly synthesized artificially, including chemical synthesis and biological enzyme method. The route of chemical synthesis of ursodeoxycholic acid is relatively complicated, requiring multiple steps of hydroxyl protection and deprotection, resulting in low total yield and high cost. The biological enzyme method for preparing ursodeoxycholic acid from chenodeoxycholic acid (CDCA) by two-step enzymatic method has the advantages of short path and low cost, so it is more and more used in industrial production. Route of enzymatic synthesis of UDCA:

(enzymatic synthesis of UDCA)

References:

1. Brevini, T. et al. FXR inhibition may protect from SARS-CoV-2 infection by reducing ACE2. Nature  https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05594-0 (2022).