Antiviral drug shows promise against COVID-19 in clinical trials

The antiviral drug Remdesivir has shown promising results in the treatment of COVID-19 in clinical trials.

Two trials of the drug were carried out: one by the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the other by Gilead Sciences, the company that manufactures Remdesivir.

More than 1,000 patients across the globe took part in NIAID’s trial. Treatment with Remdesivir was compared with supportive care with a placebo. Patients who received the antiviral recovered in an average of 11 days, while those on the placebo took 15 days.

“The data shows that remdesivir has a clear-cut, significant, positive effect in diminishing the time to recovery,” said Dr Anthony Fauci, NIAID head who is leading the US response against COVID-19, at a White House meeting with President Donald Trump, reported CNN.

Remdesivir has not yet been approved for clinical use, but the US Food and Drug Administration could issue an emergency use authorisation soon, according to The New York Times.

Along with this Gilead also announced results of their Phase 3 clinical trials on their website Wednesday. They had tested the drug on 397 hospitalised COVID-19 patients with severe disease.

Their study showed that patients on a 10-day treatment course of remdesivir experienced similar improvement compared with those taking the drug for five days. More than half of the patients in both treatment groups were discharged from the hospital by day 14, said Gilead.

“Unlike traditional drug development, we are attempting to evaluate an investigational agent alongside an evolving global pandemic,” said Dr Merdad Parsey, chief medical officer at Gilead Sciences. “These study results complement data from the placebo-controlled study of Remdesivir conducted by the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases.” 

Company CEO Daniel O’Day, has said in an open letter that Gilead’s existing supply of the drug could cover around 140,000 treatment courses for patients with COVID-19, based on 10 days of treatment. Gilead says it plans to submit the study for publication in a peer-reviewed journal in the coming weeks.

A professor and chief of infectious diseases at Stanford University School of Medicine, Dr Aruna Subramanian, called the results “encouraging” as shorter treatment duration could alleviate the burden on hospitals and healthcare workers.

However, the World Health Organisation has not been as optimistic.

“Typically, you don’t have one study that will come out that will be a game changer,” said Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead for the coronavirus response, reported CNN.

She said the agency generally reviews evidence from several studies before giving a definitive statement.

Remdesivir, which was developed to treat Ebola, isn’t licensed or approved anywhere in the world yet. It belongs to a class of drugs known as nucleotide analogs which can block the production of viral DNA or RNA. Previously it has proved effective against Ebola, Marburg, MERS and SARS both in vitro and in vivo.

from coronavirus – SAMAA https://ift.tt/2xph9Ou