Now the drug, created by pharmaceutical giant Gilead Sciences, is being tested in new clinical trials, and global health authorities deem it the most promising of possible treatments for people who are severely ill with the novel coronavirus, which causes the covid-19 disease. Because it is a “broad spectrum’’ drug that has been effective against multiple viral targets in the lab and in animals, the strategy could work, experts said.
The drug’s journey — from failing to prolong the lives of Ebola patients in sub-Saharan Africa just last year to being rushed into coronavirus clinical trials in China and the United States this year — symbolizes a dire lack of antiviral drugs that can fight emerging infectious threats.
As the outbreak spreads worldwide, a vaccine to prevent infection remains at least a year away. Meanwhile, there is no approved treatment to stop the virus once someone is infected, and the severe and sometimes fatal respiratory distress that afflicts a minority of patients.
The hope is that remdesivir will show better results with the coronavirus than it did with Ebola, which is from a different viral family, officials said. The first trial results could be available in April.
Gilead, the National Institutes of Health and Chinese health authorities are racing to test it on hundreds of people in controlled clinical trials, including a patient who was quarantined in Nebraska after being removed from the Diamond Princess cruise ship. Axios reported this month that Gilead acted so quickly that it did not even wait for required approval by the Food and Drug Administration before it shipped doses to China. Asked to respond, Gilead said it thinks its “limited shipments’’ were made in compliance with U.S. law.
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