From the U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Discover and deliver: Enlisting Science to Solve COVID-19

As governments take steps to re-open the economy, one sentiment prevails: Americans must get back to good health before we can get back to business as usual. That means we need reliable therapeutic treatments, diagnostic testing, and, eventually, an effective vaccine. The pharmaceutical industry is already delivering.

Right now, there are 173 vaccine and treatment candidates in the clinical stages of development for COVID-19, according to data released yesterday from BioCentury. With so many treatments under development, who is leading the way?

One of these leaders is Gilead. Early data from Gilead’s Phase 3 clinical trials for its investigational antiviral Remdesivir shows particular promise with coronavirus.

While Gilead first began to test Remdesivir in critically-ill patients in February 2020, the research that led to Remdesivir dates back to 2009. Remdesivir was used in clinical trials to combat Ebola from 2014-2016, and while Remdesivir ultimately proved less effective than other treatments, the story of Remdesivir sheds light on the drug development process more broadly. It often takes years of R&D, testing, and often times, failures, before a treatment reaches the market.

While Gilead awaits data from multiple ongoing studies exploring the safety and efficacy of Remdesivir, partial data last week from a University of Chicago Medicine study showed that nearly all enrolled patients were discharged from the hospital with no fever or respiratory symptoms in less than a week.

The early data has given scientists hope that Remdesivir could be one treatment which will help get patients back to health, and eventually, back to life.

It's inspiring to see companies working around the clock to combat COVID-19. It’s even more inspiring to see their efforts pay off.

Jonathan Weinberger, Executive Vice President, Global Innovation Policy Center