Gilead Sciences Inc experimental drug for patients with severe Covid-19 infections showed promise in an early analysis, raising tentative hope that the first treatment for the novel virus may be on the horizon.
The report published in the New England Journal of Medicine tracked 53 people in the U.S., Europe and Canada who needed respiratory support, with about half receiving mechanical ventilation and four on a heart-lung by-pass machine.
Eight additional patients were left out of the analysis: one due to a dosing error and seven because no information was available on how they fared.
All received remdesivir for up to 10 days on a compassionate use basis, a program that allows people to use unapproved medicines when no other treatment options are available.
Over 18 days, 68% of the patients improved, with 17 of the 30 patients on mechanical ventilation being able to get off the breathing device. Almost half of the patients studied were ultimately discharged, while 13% died.
Mortality was highest among those who were on a ventilator, with 18% of them dying.
“We cannot draw definitive conclusions from these data, but the observations from this group of hospitalized patients who received remdesivir are hopeful,” said lead author Jonathan Grein, director of hospital epidemiology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, in a statement from Gilead.
The Foster City, California-based company provided the medication and also helped analyze the results.
Several large scale clinical trials are underway to evaluate the benefit of remdesivir for Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus that has infected more than 1.65 million people worldwide and killed 100,000.
One that was conducted in China could report results this month. Another, sponsored by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, has enrolled patients rapidly as the virus spread throughout the U.S. It could also report results in the coming weeks.
Gilead itself is sponsoring an additional two trials. “In studying remdesivir, the question is not just whether it is safe and effective against Covid-19, but in which patients it shows activity, how long should they receive treatment and at what stage of their disease would treatment be most beneficial,” said Daniel O’Day, Gilead’s chairman and chief executive officer.
“Many answers are needed, which is why we need multiple types of studies involving many types of patients.”
Some of these answers will emerge in the coming weeks with the release of initial data from the various clinical trials, O’Day said Friday in an open letter sent via email.
There are currently no treatments proven to work specifically against the coronavirus infection. Gilead has provided the medicine to more than 1,800 patients on a compassionate use basis.
If it’s shown to be safe and effective for treating Covid-19, the medication is estimated to cost about $9 a treatment to make, said Andrew Hill, a senior visiting research fellow in the pharmacology department at Liverpool University, and colleagues in a study Friday.
As an intravenous infusion, there would be additional costs to administer remdesivir, which are likely to exceed the estimated manufacturing, the authors said.
Source:Businessday.ng
