Hydroxychloroquine, a known antiviral metabolite of chloroquine, is increasingly used along with antibiotic azithromycin for the treatment of COVID-19 infection. In about one month, India, the world’s largest manufacturer, delivered the pharmaceutical ingredient for treating COVID-19 to over 50 countries. Coupled to azithromycin, the therapy is being used across the world both for patients staying at home at the early phase of symptoms, as well as for patients hospitalized. We summarize achievements as of late April 2020, review possible modes of action and suggest avenues for the quick scale-up of production of hydroxychloroquine.

The epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) is a kind of cell membrane surface receptor with tyrosine kinase activity, which is closely related to the growth, proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis, metastasis and other processes of tumor cells. Targeting EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors has become a hot topic for drug development for treatment of non-small-cell cancer (NSCLC). Herein, we summarized recent advances on the targeted therapeutic drugs for NSCLC in recent years.

Coffea arabica L. is a famous specie in genus caffee for medicinal treatment and diet with wide distribution and rich resources. It contains rich alkaloids, flavonoids and terpenes, which exhibited antioxidation, anti-inflammatory, antitumor, antidiabetic, live protection, and neuroprotective activities. Herein, we summarized the progress in the chemical constituents and bioactivities of C. arabica L. to provide ideas for medicinal development prospects of C. arabica L.

Percutaneous penetration enhancers can regulate the transdermal absorption of drugs. Generally speaking, it can be divided into two categories: chemical synthesis and natural sources. Natural percutaneous penetration enhancers have the advantages of safety and mildness. This review summarizes the mechanism and characteristics of three kinds of percutaneous penetration enhancers and their combined application in transdermal drug delivery systems. The three different types of percutaneous penetration enhancers are fatty acids, alkaloids and terpenes. It is expected to provide considerations for the application research of percutaneous penetration enhancers rich in traditional Chinese medicines in transdermal drug delivery systems.

In this paper, the extraction conditions of water-soluble polysaccharide from Bletilla striata were optimized by response surface methodology. With the dried Bletilla striata as raw materials, phenol-sulfuric acid method as the method of polysaccharide extraction rate, polysaccharide extraction rate as an indicator, the optimum process conditions for polysaccharide extraction from Bletilla striata were obtained including liquid-solid ratio of 15 mg/mL, extraction temperature 90 °C, extraction time of 90 h, sample immersion time 90 min, and extraction 2 times, achieving the corresponding polysaccharide yield of 48.38%. The antioxidant assays in vitro revealed that the polysaccharides from Bletilla striata exhibited a slight scavenging activity for 1,1-diphenyl-2- picrylhydrazyl radicals and 2,2'-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) radical cations.