Biotech to recruit 1000 patients for coronavirus clinical drug trial

Remdesivir, an antiviral developed to fight Ebola, is not an approved drug but has been used in the US with apparent success.

The COVID-19 virus.

US biotech Gilead Sciences will recruit 1000 patients with coronavirus for a clinical trial aimed at assessing whether the experimental antiviral drug remdesivir is effective in the treatment of COVID-19.

Remdesivir, a broad-spectrum antiviral developed to fight the Ebola virus, is not an approved drug in the US or in Australia but it has been used in the US on a one-off basis to treat a coronavirus patient with apparent success.

Clinical trials of remdesivir to treat COVID-19 are also under way in China, and the use of the drug has received the backing of the World Health Organisation.

WHO assistant director-general Bruce Aylward said early indications were that remdesivir could be effective in treating coronavirus. “There is only one drug right now we think may have real efficacy and that’s remdesivir,” he said.

Gilead will test the drug on patients recruited via medical centres across Asia, as well as other countries globally with high numbers of COVID-19 cases. It has donated supplies of remdesivir to the China-Japan Friendship Hospital to assist in China’s clinical trial.

“Gilead’s primary focus is on rapidly determining the safety and efficacy of remdesivir as a potential treatment for COVID-19, and this complementary array of studies helps to give us a more expansive breadth of data globally on the drug’s profile in a short amount of time,” said Gilead’s chief medical officer, Merdad Parsey.

“The speed with which remdesivir has moved into clinical development for this coronavirus reflects the pressing need for treatment options and the shared commitment of industry, governments, global health organisations and healthcare providers to respond with the highest urgency.”

The Gilead studies will evaluate two regimens: 400 patients with severe clinical manifestations and 600 with moderate symptoms will receive five or 10 days of remdesivir.