A draft document provided to the World Health Organization that was inadvertently released suggests that the antiviral medicine remdesivir does not speed the improvement of patients with COVID-19 or prevent them from dying, STAT reported Thursday.
The document was quickly removed from WHO’s website, and a spokesperson for Gilead Sciences, which manufactures the drug, said it was not a final version and was still undergoing peer review.
The results from this clinical trial, conducted in China, could dampen earlier optimism about remdesivir, which appeared to perform well in small early trials, as STAT and KQED had previously reported.
According to a screenshot captured by STAT, the study was terminated prematurely and "remdesivir was not associated with clinical or virological benefits."
Other studies are ongoing to test the drug.
— Monica Lam (@monicazlam)