HONG KONG – Foster City, Calif.-based Gilead Sciences Inc., which is ramping up its COVID-19 candidate production and research and is donating 1.5 million doses for compassionate use, published results in New England Journal of Medicine from a cohort analysis of 53 severe patients hospitalized with severe complications from COVID-19, showing a cumulative incidence of clinical improvement of 84% after 28 days of follow-up, according to Kaplan-Meier analysis.
Two phase III studies in China testing Gilead Sciences Inc.’s antiviral drug, remdesivir, in patients with COVID-19 infection have been halted after Chinese authorities reported a lack of eligible patients. Other studies, including trials sponsored by the Foster City, Calif.-based company, remain ongoing.
Evercore ISI assembled a dozen internal specialists for a webinar to talk about COVID-19 from a variety of perspectives, with opinions aplenty on transmission route, up-and-coming treatment prospects, and problems in how testing procedures are understood – or not.
Evercore ISI assembled a dozen internal specialists for a webinar to talk about COVID-19 from a variety of perspectives, with opinions aplenty on transmission route, up-and-coming treatment prospects, and problems in how testing procedures are understood – or not.
Second Genome Inc. (SG) CEO Karim Dabbagh said his firm’s deal with Gilead Sciences Inc. is “pretty significant, given some of the other deals in the microbiome and inflammatory bowel disease [IBD] space,” telling BioWorld the potential $1.5 billion-plus agreement involves “biomarkers in multiple disease areas on five of Gilead’s portfolio programs in inflammation, fibrosis and oncology. Associated with that is a drug discovery collaboration around five targets in the context of IBD.”
After plunging dramatically at the beginning of the month, biopharmaceutical equities appear to be recovering some of the valuation they originally lost when the financial markets cratered. As the curtain closed on a very turbulent month that most investors will want to forget, the BioWorld Biopharmaceutical index finished up 0.75%, but down about 2% for the year.
Following a public backlash to Monday’s news that the FDA had granted Gilead Sciences Inc. an orphan drug designation for remdesivir, an antiviral in development to treat COVID-19, the Foster City, Calif., company is taking the unprecedented step of rescinding its request for the designation.
According to an analysis conducted by BioWorld of the fourth-quarter and year-end 2019 financial reports filed by the top 100 public biopharmaceutical companies ranked by market cap, and excluding big pharma companies, the amount that was invested in research and development (R&D) during the year increased 35% compared to the same period in 2018.
BEIJING – While repurposing drugs may be a quick solution to an epidemic like COVID-19 that has a limited research window, it’s just luck as to whether an already available drug candidate exists for newly emergent diseases. Experts say it’s more realistic to develop better drugs instead of attempting to repurpose old ones.
Concerns about the escalating global spread of COVID-19 panicked the markets big time at the close of the month. With investors rushing to the sidelines, it only took five days for the Dow Jones Industrial Average to drop more than 10% from its all-time high, getting close to the 30,000 mark.