WHO: Gilead Sciences Drug May Help Treat Coronavirus Symptoms
FOSTER CITY (CBS SF) -- Shares of Foster City-based biotech firm Gilead Sciences rose 3% Monday after an official from the World Health Organization said that Gilead's drug remdesivir is showing signs that it may be able to help treat the deadly coronavirus.
Gilead Sciences was the top performing stock in the S&P 500 and was just one of two stocks in the Nasdaq-100 that was trading higher on Monday, a day when the Dow plunged more than 1,000 points due to fears about the disease spreading to Italy, South Korea and Iran.
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"There is only one drug right now that we think may have real efficacy and that's remdesivir," Bruce Aylward, an assistant director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), said at a press conference in Beijing.
WHO officials added that clinical trials for remdesivir in humans are now taking place and results could be available within weeks. Gilead Sciences was not immediately available for comment about the WHO's claims.
But Gilead Sciences said earlier this month that it has been working with Chinese health authorities to see if remdesivir, an experimental drug that has been used to treat the Ebola virus, can combat coronavirus symptoms.
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The company also said in a statement a few weeks ago that remdesivir has demonstrated some success in treating MERS and SARS, two viruses similar to the Wuhan coronavirus, in animals.
Gilead Sciences is not the only drug firm hoping to find a successful treatment for the coronavirus. Pharmaceutical giants Johnson & Johnson and GlaxoSmithKline are also working on vaccines.
Biotech company AbbVie has said that it has seen promising results for treatment using a mixture of two of its HIV medications and Tamiflu, which is made by Swiss pharma giant Roche and Japan's Chugai Pharmaceutical Co.
Smaller drug companies Moderna, Inovio Pharmaceuticals and Novavax are also working on treatments.
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