A SPANISH pharmaceutical giant has said it could have an effective treatment for coronavirus in Europe and the US within weeks.

PharmaMar president Jose Maria Fernandez told press today that the treatment is based on the marine compound Aplidine, which is used to treat cancer and is already approved in Australia.

Fernandez said his company has ‘high expectations’ that their tests will reveal Aplidine as an effective treatment against coronavirus ‘within a month’.

However any vaccine could face approval delays of between 12 and 18 months, meaning the company is opting for creating a drug.

PharmaMar has said it will request a fast track for the product’s approval and commercialisation.

It comes after Aplidine was rejected when presented to the European Medicines Agency back in 2018.

Fernandez said he will therefore also submit the treatment for approval by the FDA in the US, which he claimed operates much ‘less of an inquisition.’

“We believe we have a compound which works against coronaviruses,” he said, “We have to do the research and we are already testing samples in specialised laboratories.

“We were looking at vaccines but they will take 12-18 months to be ready, which by that point they may not be necessary as we may already be immunised naturally.”

PharmaMar recently signed a €900 million deal with an American company for lung cancer drug it developed.