Morning trading April 17, page-377

From 'Fierce Biotech' (free newsletter) 15 April:

"Remdesivir, a nucleotide analogue prodrug originally tested in Ebola patients, has emerged as one of the top near-term hopes of improving outcomes in COVID-19 patients. Responding to the dire need, Gilead has made remdesivir available to more than 1,700 people on a compassionate use basis while also providing it to subjects in its own clinical trials and those run by other sponsors.Gilead earlier this month provided a snapshot of the experiences of patients treated on a compassionate use basis in a paper published in The New England Journal of Medicine. The study covered 61 patients, eight of whom were excluded due to a lack of post-treatment data or a dosing error.That left Gilead with an analyzable cohort of 53 patients, 30 of whom were on mechanical ventilation at the start of the study. The patients received 10 days of treatment with remdesivir and were then tracked for a median of 18 days.As of the end of the follow-up period, 68% had an improvement in oxygen-class support. More than half of the mechanically ventilated patients were extubated. Almost half of the patients in the study were discharged in the analyzed period. Seven patients died. All bar one of the people who died were receiving invasive ventilation at baseline."