Some Kadlec coronavirus patients receiving promising antiviral drug as part of study

Some COVID-19 patients at Kadlec Regional Medical Center in Richland are being given an experimental antiviral drug that has shown some promise in reducing the severity of the illness.

Remdesivir was developed by Gilead Sciences as a treatment for Ebola, but now is being tested in clinical trials for patients being treated for COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus.

It was used at Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett, Wash., in January to treat the first confirmed COVID-19 patient to be treated for the illness in the nation, according to Frontline’s “Coronavirus Pandemic” on PBS.

The patient improved after receiving remdesivir, allowed under a compassionate use approval by the Food and Drug Administration, although doctors were unable to confirm that remdesivir made a difference in his recovery.

Gilead also reported, based on an analysis published in the New England Journal of Medicine, that a study of the first 53 patients treated under the compassionate use program for remdesivir found a majority of them improved after taking the drug. All were critically ill.

Now clinical trials are underway, which will help determine whether remdesivir played a role in the patient’s recovery and has the potential to help other patients.

Gilead said on Wednesday that it was aware of positive data from a study being done on remdesivir by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), with full results expected to be released soon by the government agency.

However, Dr. Lawrence Altman, a global fellow at The Wilson Center think tank in Washington, D.C., cautioned that the NIAID study’s findings appear to offer “a glimmer of hope,” they will need to be evaluated and compared to other studies of the drug “that have shown mixed results.”

Kadlec, which is part of the Providence Health and Services network, is participating in Gilead studies — separate from the NIAID study — of the use of remdesivir in patients with severe and also more moderate symptoms who agree to be part of the studies. Not all participants in the trial receive the drug.

The study of the drug’s use in severely ill patients hit the number of patients researchers had planned to study, but it was expanded so thousands more patients in the United States, Asia and Europe could participate, including those on mechanical ventilation.

Remdesivir study results

“In studying remdesivir, the question is not just whether it is safe and effective against COVID-19 but in which patients it shows activity, how long should they receive treatment and at what stage of their disease would treatment be most beneficial,” said Gilead Chief Executive Daniel O’Day in a letter posted on the company’s website.

Gilead expects soon to have some preliminary data from its study of remdesivir in severe cases of COVID-19 and plans to work quickly to interpret and share the data.

The initial data on remdesivir in patients with more moderate symptoms could be available in late May, according to Gilead.

The company cautions that remdesivir remains an investigational treatment and has not been approved for widespread use anywhere in the world.

The NIAID has completed an earlier study, announcing on April 17 that a study on remdesivir in monkeys infected with COVID-19 supports the clinical testing already underway across the United States.

Six rhesus macaques infected with the new coronavirus and then given remdesivir fared better than six infected monkeys not given the drug at the NIAID’s Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Mont.

The new coronavirus did less damage to the lungs of treated animals than the lungs of untreated animals, the study concluded.

However, the treatment did not make them less infectious.

“This finding is of great significance for patient management, where a clinical improvement should not be interpreted as a lack of infectiousness,” researchers said.

This story was originally published April 29, 2020 at 12:40 PM.