Gilead Sciences has teamed up with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is part of the China Academy of Sciences, to conduct a clinical trial to assess the drug remdesivir for the treatment of the new coronavirus.
Remdesivir was originally developed for the treatment of the Ebola virus but was found to be ineffective. However, preclinical assessments have suggested that it could be effective against the new virus, which is also called 2019-nCoV.
The results of preclinical assessments were published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The drug was given to an American patient on day seven of the disease, which improved the patient’s condition on day eight.
The new trial will be conducted at Friendship Hospital in Beijing, China, by enrolling 270 patients with mild to moderate pneumonia caused by the new coronavirus.
The pharmaceutical company said, “Gilead is working closely with global health authorities to respond to the novel coronavirus outbreak through the appropriate experimental use of our investigational compound remdesivir. While there are no antiviral data for remdesivir that show activity against 2019-nCoV at this time, available data in other coronaviruses give us hope.”
Researchers said that remdesivir and chloroquine, a drug used to treat malaria, could be effective at preventing or treating the coronavirus.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) has been trying to downplay media reports of any drug discoveries against the outbreak, stating that there is “no known” drug against the virus.
The WHO said, “There are no known effective therapeutics against this 2019-nCoV and WHO recommends enrollment into a randomized controlled trial to test efficacy and safety. A master global clinical trial protocol for research and prioritization of therapeutics is ongoing at the WHO.”
So far, the new coronavirus has affected nearly 28,300 people and killed 565, 99 percent of the figures are from China.
Remdesivir is an experimental drug that is not approved anywhere in the world. The drug has been rushed into clinical trials in China to combat the outbreak.
CMO of Gilead Sciences, Merdad Parsey, told Bloomberg that remdesivir might enter clinical trials in China in the next week and it will be assessed in patients with moderate to severe symptoms.
Gilead will ship enough doses of remdesivir to China to treat 500 patients. The company has been increasing the drug supply in case the clinical studies are found to be effective.
