Gilead’s COVID-19 Drug Trials Reportedly Yield Positive Results

A newly published report has offered a glimmer hope in the ongoing fight against coronavirus.

According to STAT News, COVID-19 patients at a Chicago hospital have experienced “rapid recoveries in fever and respiratory symptoms,” after receiving treatments of remdesivir—an antiviral medicine developed by Gilead Sciences Inc. The outlet cites data from the University of Chicago Medicine, where 125 coronavirus patients were recruited to participate in Gilead’s remdesivir trials. Of that group, 113 patients had severe cases, but the majority were discharged less than a week after starting therapy.

Kathleen Mullane, an infectious disease specialist overseeing the studies at the hospital, addressed the results earlier this week during a presentation with University of Chicago faculty members. STAT obtained a video recording of the discussion.

“The best news is that most of our patients have already been discharged, which is great,” Mullane reportedly told her colleagues. “We’ve only had two patients perish.”

Mullane, however, cautioned against jumping to conclusions about remdesivir’s effectiveness in treating COVID-19, as the study lacked a control arm.

“It’s always hard. But certainly when we start [the] drug, we see fever curves falling,” she continued. “Fever is now not a requirement for people to go on trial, we do see when patients do come in with high fevers, they do [reduce] quite quickly. We have seen people come off ventilators a day after starting therapy. So, in that realm, overall our patients have done very well.”