Remdesivir, which was originally developed to treat other coronaviruses like SARS and has also been tested on Ebola, isn’t licensed or approved for use anywhere in the world.
Last week, the World Health Organization prematurely and accidentally published negative results of another trial of remdesivir in China, retracting the results soon after. The WHO post showed that the antiviral didn’t help severely ill patients avoid death, and it also didn’t reduce the amount of virus in their bodies.
Gilead has said the WHO post included “inappropriate characterization of the study” and that there could still be potential benefits for patients who are treated early-on.
--With assistance from Cristin Flanagan, Dong Lyu and Naomi Kresge.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.