- Gilead Sciences Inc.’s remdesivir is ineffective in treating hospitalized Covid-19 patients.
- It was among the drugs President Donald Trump received when he was diagnosed with the disease in early October.
In The BMJ medical journal a panel of WHO-convened experts developing Covid-19 treatment guidelines said “There is currently no evidence that it improves survival or the need for ventilation”, says an article published in Bloomberg.
Negative Impacts on Gilead Sciences Inc.’s
Gilead shares fell as much as 1.9% in New York. They have lost 8% this year.
Why WHO took this step?
The experts made the recommendation after the results of a global trial sponsored by the WHO, called Solidarity, found last month that remdesivir didn’t reduce deaths. They reviewed data from three other trials and said “the drug has no meaningful effect”.
Gilead Reaction on WHO’s recommendation
Gilead has questioned the results of WHO’s trial and said the agency still has not released key data to allow the company or others to evaluate the reliability of the interim results.
Gilead said “Multiple studies published in peer-reviewed journals have show remdesivir, also known as Veklury, is beneficial against the virus, particularly in improving recovery time, which can free up limited hospital resources”.
They said evidences were ignored by the WHO guidelines.
Comments in favor of Gilead
Lilly Chief Executive Officer David Ricks commented
“We know the benefits of remdesivir are probably subtle, or modest, and the benefits of baricitinib on top of remdesivir are probably incremental”.
Japan’s chief cabinet secretary Katsunobu Kato said
“There’s no need for the nation, which gave its nod in May, to review remdesivir’s approval at this time”.
Zhong Nanshan, a Chinese expert on infectious disease, commented
“Remdesivir isn’t entirely useless,” citing shortened hospital stays among mild patients in the U.S.
U.S. FDA careless behavior
The Solidarity results were published Oct. 15. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the drug a week later, basing its decision on a trial run by the National Institutes of Health that showed remdesivir reduced hospitalized patients’ recovery time by five days.
The FDA said in its review of remdesivir that “there were no issues identified that would benefit from discussion” by a panel of outside advisers.
The FDA granted an emergency-use authorization for remdesivir in combination with baricitinib, a rheumatoid arthritis treatment from Eli Lilly & Co. and Incyte Corp., for hospitalized Covid-19 patients requiring ventilation.
The FDA was earlier criticized for hastily authorizing an antimalarial drug, hydroxychloroquine, to treat Covid-19.The FDA then revoked its authorization after hydroxychloroquine shown harmful side effects.
WHO’s Experts further added after Gilead’s reaction
The WHO experts wrote in The BMJ that “they didn’t mean that remdesivir is ineffective, but that there is no evidence based on currently available data that it does improve patient-important outcomes.”
“Relatively high cost and resource implications associated with remdesivir”, they further added.
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Source: Bloomberg
