The California biotech company, Gilead Sciences, says its experimental drug, Remdesivir, improved symptoms when administered to moderately ill, hospitalized patients with COVID-19, for five days .
Gilead gave few details on Monday but said full results would soon be published in a medical journal.
Remdesivir is the only treatment that has been shown, in a rigorous experiment, to help fight the coronavirus. A large study led by the National Institutes of Health recently found that it could shorten average recovery time from 15 days to 11 days, in hospitalized patients with severe cases of the disease.
A vial of the drug Remdesivir is viewed during a press conference about the start of a study with the drug in particularly severely ill patients at the University Hospital Eppendorf (UKE) in Hamburg, northern Germany, April 8, 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic. (Ulrich Perrey / POOL / AFP)
The drug is administered through an IV and is designed to interfere with an enzyme that the virus uses to copy its genetic material. Remdesivir is approved for treating COVID-19 in Japan and is authorized for emergency use in the United States for certain patients. It has also been given to patients in Israel.
The company-led study involved nearly 600 patients who had moderate pneumonia, but did not need oxygen support. All were randomly assigned to get five or 10 days of the drug plus standard care, or standard care alone. Both patients and their doctors knew who was getting what, which limits the objectivity of the results.
— AP
Help us report truthfully on social media
As a multimedia journalist, my job is to take the quality, fact-based journalism produced by The Times of Israel newsroom and make it accessible across every platform — from Instagram posts to podcasts to short-form videos.
This is how many, especially young people, consume news these days. But misinformation is rampant on social media. Our team at ToI produces accurate, responsible short-form reporting on Israel and the Jewish world.
If you believe in the importance of factual social media journalism, please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. Your financial support is essential to sustain responsible multimedia reporting.
We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we started the Times of Israel - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you, David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel
From the Liveblog of
Monday, June 1, 2020
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on Google
