University of Chicago Medicine researchers said they saw "rapid recoveries" in 125 COVID-19 patients taking Gilead Sciences Inc.'s experimental drug Remdesivir as part of a clinical trial.
So as was already laid out in the previous story, medical scientists had already determined that Remdesivir prevents viral replication and stops Covid-19 dead in it's tracks. Then it was on to double-blind clinical trials.
One trial is evaluating Remdesivir in 2,400 people with severe forms of the disease, the other is testing the drug in 1,600 patients who are moderately ill. Both trials began in March and are expected to conclude in May.
There are 125 people with COVID-19 receiving care at the University of Chicago who are participating in two Phase 3 clinical trials conducted by Gilead; 113 of them have severe forms of the disease. Two of the 113 patients died(Of course they could have been administered the placebo or already too seriously ill, we won't know until the results are revealed).
Patients on mechanical ventilation were specifically excluded from these trials, likely for the reason I've mentioned previously, that it's not unlike Tamiflu that works if administered early on, but is useless once the viral infection is full-blown.
Gilead itself says Phase 3 trial data to be available at the end of April and data from other studies to be available in May.
MarketWatch