On Treating COVID-19: Gilead Sciences' Remdesivir and more
Photo by CDC
Last week, the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases announced that:
"Hospitalized patients with advanced COVID-19 and lung involvement who received remdesivir recovered faster than similar patients who received placebo
"Preliminary results indicate that patients who received remdesivir had a 31% faster time to recovery than those who received placebo"
NOTE: Remdesivir was initially developed by Gilead Sciences Inc. to treat the ebola virus.
Also, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency authorization for using remdesivir for the treatment of COVID-19 in adults and children hospitalized with severe disease and said,
"While there is limited information known about the safety and effectiveness of using remdesivir to treat people in the hospital with COVID-19, the investigational drug was shown in a clinical trial to shorten the time to recovery in some patients.
"Severe disease is defined as patients with low blood oxygen levels or needing oxygen therapy or more intensive breathing support such as a mechanical ventilator."
"it was determined that it is reasonable to believe that remdesivir may be effective in treating COVID-19, and that, given there are no adequate, approved, or available alternative treatments, the known and potential benefits to treat this serious or life-threatening virus currently outweigh the known and potential risks of the drug’s use."
Addressing the announcements above, Gilead Science's CEO Daniel O'Day said,
"I think it's important to note that this is a medicine that really is for the most severe patients …
"This is for hospitalized patients, this is for patients that have progressed very, very advanced in their disease
“This is a starting point, and we're not done."
OUR TAKE
Remdesivir's effectiveness still has to be proven in the field and Gilead has to ramp up production, which may take until the end of 2020. The good news is there are many potential treatments under development for COVID-19.
Because the risk of contracting of COVID-19 may last 18-24 months (according to a recent study by Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota), a vaccine is needed.
Remdesivir is a treatment, not a vaccine, but there are over 100 vaccine candidates in development worldwide (eight are in early clinical trials.) As they are tested, many will fail - but only a few need to be effective.
News about potential treatments and vaccines (both positive and negative) will likely trigger significant global market swings until COVID-19 uncertainty is reduced.