Early peek at data on Gilead coronavirus drug suggests patients are responding to treatment

[swag]

Source: STAT

By ADAM FEUERSTEIN @adamfeuerstein and MATTHEW HERPER @matthewherper

A Chicago hospital treating severe Covid-19 patients with Gilead Sciences’ antiviral medicine remdesivir in a closely watched clinical trial is seeing rapid recoveries in fever and respiratory symptoms, with nearly all patients discharged in less than a week, STAT has learned.

Remdesivir was one of the first medicines identified as having the potential to impact SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes Covid-19, in lab tests. The entire world has been waiting for results from Gilead’s clinical trials, and positive results would likely lead to fast approvals by the Food and Drug Administration and other regulatory agencies. If safe and effective, it could become the first approved treatment against the disease.

The University of Chicago Medicine recruited 125 people with Covid-19 into Gilead’s two Phase 3 clinical trials. Of those people, 113 had severe disease. All the patients have been treated with daily infusions of remdesivir.

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“The best news is that most of our patients have already been discharged, which is great. We’ve only had two patients perish,” said Kathleen Mullane, the University of Chicago infectious disease specialist overseeing the remdesivir studies for the hospital.

Her comments were made this week during a video discussion about the trial results with other University of Chicago faculty members. The discussion was recorded and STAT obtained a copy of the video.

Read more: https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/16/early-peek-at-data-on-gilead-coronavirus-drug-suggests-patients-are-responding-to-treatment/

[pbmus]

1. Excellent, fantastic, wonderful

[SunSeeker]

2. Good news. nt

[iluvtennis]

3. Great news. Nearly all of the 125 people responded well to the drug and been discharged.

Fingers crossed.

[R Merm]

4. There is also a placenta-based cell-therapy product showing early promise

https://www.jpost.com/health-science/israeli-covid-19-treatment-shows-100-percent-su

[riversedge]

8. Error 404 - Page not found Sorry but the page you are looking for cannot be found

Is you like correct. Looks like an interesting article.

[R Merm]

11. Try this link

https://www.jpost.com/HEALTH-SCIENCE/Israeli-COVID-19-treatment-with-100-percent-success-rate-tested-on-US-patient-624653?fbclid=IwAR3LcmMlVZcWThTDGr2MKyJkg1Zlu1n1mlnZOwOYspMGGQaM1Xi0KJCC4DI

[DeminPennswoods]

5. Fantastic news!

[Ellipsis]

6. Thank you for posting this. n/t

[riversedge]

7. good news. we needed some for this horrible disease.

[cayugafalls]

9. That is good news.

They were doing a second clinical trial in China, but recently China halted that trial.

There are also some compassionate use trials going on that look promising as well.

[keithbvadu2]

10. Is Trump invested in this company?

Is Trump invested in this company?

[PennyK]

13. Surprise!

I THOUGHT I remembered this name. It was chaired by Donald Rumsfeld. Mic drop.

[Karma13612]

19. When I hear the name Gilead

I immediately think of Handmaid’s Tale

[Tucker08087]

20. Same.

And still I cling to hope.

[Karma13612]

30. LOL!

Yea, I try to remind myself that it’s just a “ko-inky-dink”, but it always gets me for moment or two.

Hubby said he doesn’t want to watch anymore episodes of the show during the pandemic. Says it seems too prophetic.

[Tucker08087]

33. Mine said the same about Walking Dead.

I said not to worry. MAGA cult members never had any brains to begin with, so I think we’re good.

I don’t get that TV channel but I read the books. The show has gone much further than the novel. I read episode recaps because I’m curious. I hope they release DVDs one day.

[Karma13612]

34. Well, if you do ever get a chance,

You need a strong stomach.

Stay healthy!

[yaesu]

22. It will hype the market until they find out its not the wonder drug they thought it was. Its all

about saving the banksters, not saving lives.

[MFGsunny]

12. Hear! Hear! for any little COVID-19 ray of medical sunshine!

Gratis Laugh track ::
will KellyAnn Dumbway want to know those other 18 rays also??

[nitpicker]

14. Wait a minute- without MORE SD, Gilead probably wouldn't be able to keep up with demand

My personal translation of this Gilead puff piece, apparently from late March:

https://www.gilead.com/purpose/advancing-global-health/covid-19/working-to-supply-remdesivir-for-covid-19

"IF everything works out all right, we might be able to keep up with projected demand by the seriously ill.""

((BUT what if there are production/distribution snags? Or caseload resurges?))

[nitpicker]

17. Over the last two weeks

Worldwide REPORTED new cases were about 1.2 million with about 100K deaths.

That's about 2.5 million cases and 200K deaths a month.

The puff piece projected output averaging 70K courses a month from May to October 2000.

So, if this IS a magic bullet-who will get the treatment and who will not, if no extra SD efforts are made?

[DrToast]

28. It's unlikely there will be enough for everyone

[onetexan]

15. Best news of my day! Thank you for posting!!

[IronLionZion]

16. So wonderful to see some good news!

[The Nurse]

18. Trump loses again

Too bad Trump invested in the wrong drug!

[MartyTheGreek]

21. Trump has a Gilead Lobbyist in his cabinet!

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1017&pid=577342

[yaesu]

24. yep, I take all of this magic bullet stuff with a grain of salt. nt

[Tanuki]

23. Cue Paul Robeson....

[SheltieLover]

25. 👏👏👏

Ty for posting!

[yaesu]

26. I'm sure their stock loves this YUGE news, sounds like more stock market hype pretending to be

mainstream news.

[DrToast]

27. It's good news, but not a silver bullet

Remdesiver has to be administered via IV. It is also difficult and time consuming to manufacture. Demand will be high and supply limited.

[NNadir]

29. Data allegedly leaked from a small clinical trial does not indicate a treatment.

In normal times, this would be a small phase II clinical trial, and, I note, no statistics are supplied.

[BillyBobBrilliant]

31. This is encouraging, but

At this point it is not a scientific study based on double blind protocols.
There is such a study underway to determine the effectiveness of Remdesivir, here at the UT Health Science Center, San Antonio by the Infectious disease department. So, literally the jury is still out. Hoping however...

[bluedye33139]

32. I believe that the sample is not representative but skewed toward a subset

In a crisis situation, asking patients to do a study is already a form of selection. People who agree to do a study will produce results about the effects of a drug in the population that voluntarily accepts an experimental drug during an infection that could be lethal.

People who would say yes to that question are a subset of the larger population. The question probably would screen out anyone with autoimmune problems, immune impairment, life-threatening pre-existing conditions, etc.

And people with these pre-existing conditions are the vulnerable population that any drug would need to protect.

It is unlikely that the population which agrees to take an experimental drug is representative of the population as a whole.

Nonetheless, I am cautiously optimistic. If the drug can inhibit viral reproduction even to a slight extent, that could tip the scale for many people. A person's immune system would be able to handle the infection throughout the body much easier if the virus were crippled. The antiviral drugs may be the way out

[denbot]

35. Crossing fingers

Thank you for lighting a candle in the darkness swag. Also, it’s good to see you posting. It doesn’t seem like you do this very often anymore.