Gilead's Remdesivir Partial Trial Data Shows Success in Treating Severe COVID-19 Patients

The University of Chicago Medicine (Chicago, IL, USA) has announced encouraging data from its clinical trial of Gilead Sciences’ (Foster City, CA, USA) antiviral medicine remdesivir for the treatment of severe COVID-19 patients. Out of 125 COVID-19 patients inducted into Gilead’s two Phase 3 clinical trials, 113 had severe disease and all the patients were treated with daily infusions of remdesivir. According to the University of Chicago Medicine, most of these patients were discharged and only two patients lost their lives, suggesting that remdesivir could be a promising treatment for COVID-19.

Remdesivir is an investigational nucleotide analog with broad-spectrum antiviral activity, but is not approved anywhere globally for any use. Remdesivir has demonstrated in vitro and in vivo activity in animal models against the viral pathogens MERS and SARS, which are also coronaviruses and are structurally similar to COVID-19. The limited preclinical data on remdesivir in MERS and SARS indicate that remdesivir may have potential activity against COVID-19. Remdesivir has also shown promising results in the treatment of COVID-19 of 14 coronavirus-infected patients in Japan.

Overall, seven clinical trials have been initiated to determine whether remdesivir is a safe and effective treatment for COVID-19. China initiated the first two studies in early February for patients with severe and moderate symptoms of the disease. Since then, an additional five trials have been initiated around the world. Two Phase 3 studies are being run by Gilead in areas with a high prevalence of COVID-19 in the US, Asia and Europe. One of these is for patients with severe disease and the other studies remdesivir in patients with more moderate symptoms. The US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) also began a global trial in February that randomly assigns patients to treatment with either remdesivir or with a placebo to enable a controlled comparison of outcomes.

Gilead expects preliminary data from the study of remdesivir in severe patients at the end of April and initial data from the placebo-controlled NIAID trial as well as data from its own study of patients with moderate symptoms of COVID-19.

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