The maker of a drug undergoing clinical trials for the treatment of COVID-19 announced positive results from a trial of remdesivir.
The trial was looking at how patients responded to either five-day or 10-day treatments of the drug. Gilead said patients treated with the five-day regimen “achieved similar improvement” to those treated for twice as long.
“The study demonstrates the potential for some patients to be treated with a five-day regimen, which could significantly expand the number of patients who could be treated with our current supply of remdesivir,” said Merdad Parsey, the chief medical officer of Gilead Sciences, which manufactures the drug. “This is particularly important in the setting of a pandemic, to help hospitals and healthcare workers treat more patients in urgent need of care.”
Locally the drug is also being tested. St. Joseph Hospital announced earlier this month it is conducting some of the trials for the medication, a feat for a small rural hospital. There are two clinical trials being done at the hospital — one to treat severe symptoms and another to treat more moderate symptoms.
Dr. Roberta Luskin-Hawk, chief executive of St. Joseph Health, Humboldt County, said a local hospitalized patient was among those to receive the drug.
“There is a patient enrolled at St. Joseph … they fell into the severe COVID category with dropping oxygen and thus were a candidate for the trial,” Luskin-Hawk told the Times-Standard on April 7.
She believes the drug shows promise.
“In my mind, this is the most potent, most hopeful drug we have right now,” she said. “That’s why I was anxious to get access. It reduces the viral load in patients. It really has antiviral activity against this particular virus. … Now we have to prove change in viral load means that outcomes will be better.”
The hospital did not provide any further information Wednesday about the local trials.
“While we understand the interest in our local participation, the only meaningful data will be from a full analysis of thousands of trial participants throughout Providence St. Joseph Health and other sites across the country,” St. Joseph Health Humboldt County said in a statement provided by spokesman Christian Hill.
The National Institutes of Health also announced the results of a study of the drug on Wednesday.
In a study of 1,063 patients sick enough to be hospitalized, Gilead Sciences’ remdesivir shortened the time to recovery by 31% — 11 days on average versus 15 days for those just given usual care.
“What it has proven is that a drug can block this virus,” the National Institutes of Health’s Dr. Anthony Fauci said.
“This will be the standard of care,” and any other potential treatments will now have to be tested against or in combination with remdesivir, he said.
No drugs are currently approved for treating the coronavirus, which has killed more than 227,000 worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University data. Nationwide there are more than 1 million cases.
In Humboldt County there have been 53 confirmed cases of the virus and four people were hospitalized.
An effective treatment could have a profound effect on pandemic’s impact, especially because a vaccine is likely to be a year or more away.
Remdesivir was being evaluated in at least seven major studies, but this one, led by the NIH, was the strictest test. Independent monitors notified study leaders just days ago that the drug was working, so it was no longer ethical to continue with a placebo group.
The drug had “a clear-cut significant positive effect,” shortening the time to hospital discharge by four days, Fauci said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. Ruth Schneider can be reached at 707-441-0520.
