[Development of COVID-19 drugs using human iPS cell technology].

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which results in a rapid increase in the number of patients and deaths. In addition, various mutant strains have emerged and to be considered to accelerate the number of infected persons. To overcome this situation, effective strategies against COVID-19 include the development of vaccines to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection and therapeutic agents that suppress the severity after infection. The drug repositioning approach, which search existing drugs that are effective against COVID-19, are expected to develop anti-COVID-19 drugs. In addition, various methods using human iPSC-derived differentiated cells has been developed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of drugs, and are also used for searching for therapeutic drugs for COVID-19. Here, we would like to describe the recent research and future perspectives for COVID-19 therapeutic drugs from the viewpoint of human iPS cell technology.