Results from two eagerly awaited clinical trials of the experimental anti-viral drug remdesivir showed it is effective against COVID-19, indicating for the first time the potential for medicines to help in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. “These two rigorously done trials provide really the first evidence of the efficacy of any therapeutic for this disease,” Lloyd Minor, MD, dean of the Stanford School of Medicine, said April 29 during a university town hall meeting.
Stanford began recruiting participants for the two trials in early March, when patients sick with the virus began showing up at its hospitals. Both trials took place at dozens of sites. One trial was a randomized, placebo-controlled study by the National Institutes of Health; the other, which had no placebo arm, was by Gilead Sciences, a company based in Foster City, California, that makes the drug.
Texas A&M University Starts Human Testing of Tuberculosis Vaccine to Fight COVID-19
Researchers in the US’ Texas A&M University are asking hundreds of frontline medical workers to participate in a late-stage, phase 4, clinical trial of a widely-used tuberculosis vaccine that could help boost the immune system and blunt the devastating effects of COVID-19 .
Texas A&M is the first US institution in the clinical trial to have federal clearance for testing on humans. Researchers hope to demonstrate that Bacillus Calmette-Guerin or BCG mitigates the effects of the novel coronavirus, allowing fewer people to be hospitalised or to die from COVID-19.
Roche Covid-19 Antibody Test Gets Emergency FDA Approval
Roche Holding AG became the latest company to win emergency U.S. approval for a coronavirus antibody test and promised a fast scale-up of the tool that policy makers hope will smooth the reopening of economies.The Swiss giant expects production of the test to reach the high double-digit millions by June and pass the 100 million monthly threshold later this year. The test looks for antibodies in blood that have been raised to fight off the virus that causes Covid-19.
Roche’s version runs on a high-volume instrument that can produce a single result in 18 minutes and as many as 300 results in an hour, the company said in a statement Sunday after receiving emergency authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.