Coronavirus: Gilead drug remdesivir sparks optimism about treatment
Shares in US pharmaceutical firm Gilead have surged after a report said its drug remdesivir had shown encouraging signs in the treatment of coronavirus in a clinical trial.
A University of Chicago hospital that is part of a wider trial of the drug said its patients taking the medicine were rapidly recovering from fever and respiratory systems, according to medical news outlet Stat.
Investors were cheered by the news, with Asian and European stocks surging. US stocks are set to rally when they open.
There are currently no approved vaccines or treatments for coronavirus, which has spread to more than 2.1m people around the world and killed more than 140,000.
Stat reported that University of Chicago Medicine’s trial of the Gilead drug recruited 113 people with severe Covid-19. It said most of them have been discharged but two patients died.
Gilead’s anti-viral drug remdesivir has drawn a lot of attention. Last week, a New England Journal of Medicine article showed two-thirds of a group of seriously ill coronavirus patients saw their conditions improve after taking the treatment.
However, neither of the trials included a control group that was given a placebo, making it hard to accurately interpret the data.
Gilead cautioned against drawing hard and fast conclusions. In a statement to Reuters, it said said “the totality of the data need[s] to be analyzed in order to draw any conclusions from the trial”.
The Chicago trial was part of a much larger series of tests on the drug, which is being tried in 152 locations. The whole trial should yield more conclusive results.
The trial has lifted investors’ mood this morning after a sell-off yesterday. Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst at Oanda, said: “We expect the Gilead Sciences story, scientific validity or not, to maintain equity markets positive tones through Europe and into the US session.”
Analysts have long said that an effective medical treatment would be the catalyst for a quick recovery of economies and markets.