Gilead’s Remdesivir is one of the first medicines proposed as having the potential to fight SARS-CoV-2, the novel virus that causes the COVID-19, in laboratory tests. Remdesivir is an antiviral medicine used as a potential treatment for Ebola.
STAT News, an independent medical publication, reports that preliminary results from a study in Chicago evaluating Remdesivir in coronavirus patients are positive with rapid recoveries in fever and respiratory symptoms observed. Almost all COVID-19 patients discharged from hospital in less than a week.
The small-scale trial, conducted by the University of Chicago Medicine, found that nearly all patients who were given daily infusions of Remdesivir were discharged from the hospital in less than a week. The university recruited 125 COVID-19 patients, 113 of which had “severe symptoms” into two clinical trials to assess five and 10-day treatment courses of the drug. The University of Chicago Medicine study excluded patients on mechanical ventilation. It is only one study of a larger number of trials that GILD is conducting around the world to create a statistically significant sample. Gilead said that Phase 3 trial data to be available at the end of the month and data from other studies to be available in May.
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Risky assets have jumped on the headlines in what seems to be the treatment for the COVID-19 pandemic. Gilead Sciences jumped in the news, in the premarket is adding over 15% at 88.40, yesterday’s close was at 76.54. Gilead is planning to increase the capacity and sales of Remdesivir. Wall Street futures are trading sharply higher with Dow Jones and S&P 500 adding over 3%, European indices also trading higher with DAX 30 and CAC 40 adding over 4%.