Shares of Gilead Sciences Inc (GILD.O) soared 15 per cent on Thursday after a media report suggested that severe COVID-19 patients were positively responding to the drugmaker’s experimental treatment remdesivir.
A Chicago hospital treating COVID-19 patients with the antiviral medication as part of a trial is seeing rapid recoveries in fever and respiratory symptoms, with nearly all patients discharged in less than a week, according to medical news website STAT.
There are other trials being run concurrently at other institutions.
There are currently no approved treatments for COVID-19, the highly contagious respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus that has infected over 2.0 million people worldwide.
Gilead did not immediately respond to request for comment.
