Sihuan Pharmaceutical Holdings Group, which has close ties to the Chinese military, is seeking approval for a drug that it says can cure Ebola, reports Reuters.

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The drug company has teamed up with Chinese research Academy of Military Medical Sciences (AMMS) to help push the drug through the regulatory approval process in China. The drug, known as JK-05, is currently only approved for emergency military use.

"We believe that we can file to the Chinese Food and Drug Administration before the end of the year,"  said Sihuan's chairman Che Fengsheng during an investor call. "They are looking at this very seriously... and we could get on the green-light track."

Sihuan,the third-largest prescription drug maker in China, was originally a military scientific unit prior to 2001, which Che beleives will help speed the approval process. "We have a myriad of connections with the military medical science units and have developed lots of products in cooperation with the AMMS," he said.

But Sihuan isn't the only pharmaceutical company that claims to have a treatment for the deadly Ebola virus, which has killed more than 4,000 people so far. And the company's drug candidate is still behind others like ZMapp and TKM-Ebola. TKM-Ebola is being developed by Vancouver-based Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corp.

Sihuan said the drug has proven effective during testing on mice, however, ZMapp and TKM-Ebola have been tested on monkeys, which have a closer immune response to that of humans. Both drugs have already been used to treat human patients with the disease.