Potential drugs for the treatment of the novel coronavirus pneumonia (COVID-19) in China

•Antivirus activities, adverse reactions, advance on COVID-19 treatment, and general usage of potential chemical drugs against SARS-CoV-2 are summarized.•Various TCMs with practical effects, including Chinese herbal compound prescriptions, injection preparations, and active ingredients of TCMs, on the treatment of COVID-19 are reviewed.•Biological products, such as interferon-α, vaccines, stem cells, and convalescent plasma, are concluded to treat COVID-19. The fight against the novel coronavirus pneumonia (namely COVID-19) that seriously harms human health is a common task for all mankind. Currently, development of drugs against the novel coronavirus (namely SARS-CoV-2) is quite urgent. Chinese medical workers and scientific researchers have found some drugs to play potential therapeutic effects on COVID-19 at the cellular level or in preliminary clinical trials. However, more fundamental studies and large sample clinical trials need to be done to ensure the efficacy and safety of these drugs. The adoption of these drugs without further testing must be careful. The relevant articles, news, and government reports published on the official and Preprint websites, PubMed and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) databases from December 2019 to April 2020 were searched and manually filtered. The general pharmacological characteristics, indications, adverse reactions, general usage, and especially current status of the treatment of COVID-19 of those potentially effective drugs, including chemical drugs, traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs), and biological products in China were summarized in this review to guide reasonable medication and the development of specific drugs for the treatment of COVID-19.