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The pharmaceutical company Gilead reacted to the report published by the World Health Organization (WHO) on the effect of the drug remdesivir on mortality. The pharmacist who created the drug. criticizes that the report was published before being peer-reviewed (independent scientists).
For the company, “the design of this trial prioritized broad access, resulting in significant heterogeneity in adoption, implementation, control and sampling (patient populations) and, consequently, it is not clear that it is possible to draw definitive conclusions from the resultsAs explained in a press release, published this Thursday. But it is precisely the wide access that scientists are praising.
Neither hydroxychloroquine nor remdesivir. WHO study reveals little impact on mortality after treatment
This Wednesday, the WHO released the preliminary results of the Solidarity Therapeutics Trial project, which aimed to accelerate clinical trials with potentially effective drugs in the treatment of patients with Covid-19. In this case, existing drugs such as remdesivir (developed to combat Ebola), hydroxychloroquine (against malaria), lopinavir / ritonavir (against HIV), and interferons (which affect the replication capacity of the virus) were analyzed.
The report, published on the medRxiv platform, concludes that “none of the drugs under study have definitively reduced mortality (in non-ventilated patients or other subgroups), the start of ventilation or the length of hospital stay.” The trials were conducted in 405 hospitals in 30 countries and a total of 11,266 adult patients participated., of which 2,750 were part of the remdesivir trial.
COVID-19. WHO will suspend the use of hydroxychloroquine in hospitalized patients
Gilead defends himself with an article published in the scientific journal The New England Journal of Medicine, where the clinical trial conducted by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in the United States, shows the benefits of remdesivir. In this phase III trial more than a thousand patients with Covid-19 participated, with mild, moderate or severe disease.
The findings indicate that patients who underwent this treatment recovered more quickly from the disease, especially those who had more serious illnesses; and that, among ventilated patients, there was a decrease in mortality.
The WHO report, though without a formal peer review, nonetheless gains support among scientists, starting with the fact that it is a trial with many patients and in very different settings.
“The WHO Solidarity trial is a well-designed study,” says Paul Griffin, Director of Infectious Diseases at Mater Health Services, Australia.
And it agrees with previous test results, according to scientists. “The results of the study have been shown in previous studies, but the important thing is the large number of patients of different ethnicities included in this clinical trial, which makes the findings shocking, ”says Brian Oliver, leader of the Respiratory Molecular Pathogenesis group at the University of Technology Sydney.
Researchers agree that after all the hope in remdesivir, the results disappoint, but Phillip Reece, a consultant to the pharmaceutical industry, says the problem may lie with the way the drugs were administered.
“Experiences with influenza antivirals have shown that they must be taken 48 hours after the first symptoms to see a benefit,” he says. “Participants in the solidarity trial may have had symptoms for several days before being hospitalized and this may reduce the chance of seeing any benefit“.
Phillip Reece also has no data to support his hypothesis, but it does leave a door open for more studies. “Despite the results, I suspect that trials will continue, at least for some of these drugs,” concludes Paul Griffin.
