With coronavirus infections and deaths mounting in the U.S., the race to find treatments and vaccines is accelerating. There are now 72 registered clinical trials ongoing in the U.S. and abroad, according to the FDA
Gilead’s experimental antiviral drug was developed to treat Ebola but failed for that purpose. Now, remdesivir has been repositioned as a potential coronavirus therapy. The hype around the drug has grown after the New England Journal of Medicine published promising but anecdotal results from compassionate use and STAT News reported on leaked data from a clinical trial in Chicago. The first official results from clinical trials are expected by the end of the month.
Outside of the trials, Gilead is still allowing patients to access the intravenous drug via a compassionate use program. It’s donating 1.5 million doses — enough to treat more than 140,000 patients — for use in clinical trials and compassionate use programs.Approved in Japan in 2014 to treat the flu, Fujifilm’s antiviral — brand name Avigan — never hit the market because of concerns it could cause birth defects. It’s now being tested against the coronavirus in Japan and the U.S.
No mRNA vaccine for any disease has yet won approval, but the technique has tantalized public health experts because churning out doses using this technology would be cheaper and easier than making traditional vaccines. The U.S. government’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority has pledged up to $483 million to accelerate the Moderna vaccine’s path to FDA approval.
supply millions of doses by the end of 2020 if the vaccine is promising, and scale up to produce hundreds of millions of doses in 2021.This experimental vaccine combines Sanofi technology that produces a protein found in the coronavirus, which aims to trigger an immune response, with an adjuvant made by GlaxoSmithKline designed to heighten that immune response.
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