Abstract: Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active. Journal of Controlled Release 329 (2021) 758–761 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Controlled Release journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jconrel Ivermectin: an award-winning drug with expected antiviral activity against COVID-19 Fabio Rocha Formiga a, b, *, Roger Leblanc c, Juliana de Souza Rebouças d, Leonardo Paiva Farias e, Ronaldo Nascimento de Oliveira f, Lindomar Pena g a Department of Immunology, Aggeu Magalhães Institute (IAM), Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ), 50670-420 Recife, PE, Brazil Graduate Program in Applied Cellular and Molecular Biology, University of Pernambuco (UPE), 50100-130 Recife, PE, Brazil Department of Chemistry, University of Miami, 1301 Memorial Drive, Coral Gables, FL 33146, USA d Institute of Biological Sciences, University of Pernambuco (UPE), 50100-130 Recife, PE, Brazil e Laboratory of Inflammation and Biomarkers, Gonçalo Moniz Institute (IGM), Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ), 40296-710 Salvador, BA, Brazil f Bioactive Compounds Synthesis Laboratory, Department of Chemistry, Federal Rural University of Pernambuco (UFRPE), 52171-900 Recife, PE, Brazil g Department of Virology, Aggeu Magalhães Institute (IAM), Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ), 50670-420 Recife, PE, Brazil b c A B S T R A C T Ivermectin is an FDA-approved broad-spectrum antiparasitic agent with demonstrated antiviral activity against a number of DNA and RNA viruses, including severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Despite this promise, the antiviral activity of ivermectin has not been consistently proven in vivo. While ivermectin’s activity against SARS-CoV-2 is currently under investigation in patients, insufficient emphasis has been placed on formulation challenges. Here, we discuss challenges surrounding the use of ivermectin in the context of coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) and how novel formulations employing micro- and nanotechnologies may address these concerns. 1. Commentary The 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine was awarded to William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ömura for their discoveries leading to ivermectin [1]. In addition to its extraordinary efficacy against parasitic diseases, ivermectin continues to offer new clinical applications due to its ability to be repurposed to treat new classes of diseases. Beyond its invaluable therapeutic role in onchocerciasis and strongyloidiasis, an increasing body of evidence points to the potential of ivermectin as an antiviral agent. Ivermectin treatment was shown to increase survival in mice infected with the pseudorabies virus (PRV) [2] and reduced titers of porcine circovirus 2 (PCV2) in the tissues and sera of infected piglets [3]. In addition, Xu et al...