MOSCOW, March 15. /TASS/. Russia’s Federal Medical Biological Agency hopes its anti-coronavirus drug Mir-19 will be registered in 2021, Musa Khaitov, director of the agency’s Institute of Immunology and corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said on Monday.

"Its efficacy will be studied during phase two. Today, it is difficult to say when it will be over. We will spare no effort to be through with the second phase the soonest possible. And there is every prerequisite for that. The drug demonstrated very high efficacy during the preclinical tests. The drug will be registered when phase two is over. I hope it will be done this year, in the near future," he told RT.

According to Khaitov, the results of the tests will be published both in Russia and abroad. "We are working on publications. We have very good data on the efficacy and safety. We plan to publish these results, including abroad," he added.

The agency head, Veronika Skvortsova, said earlier that the Mir-19 drug is based on micro-RNA that blocks certain parts of the virus RNA. According to Skvortsova, phase one of the Mir-19 clinical tests is expected to be completed by mid-March.