
Gilead data suggests coronavirus patients are responding to treatment - dankohn1
https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/16/early-peek-at-data-on-gilead-coronavirus-drug-suggests-patients-are-responding-to-treatment/
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nayuki
The fact that they don't have a control group is not a good sign:

> Mullane, while encouraged by the University of Chicago data, made clear her
> own hesitancy about drawing too many conclusions. “It’s always hard,” she
> said, because the severe trial doesn’t include a placebo group for
> comparison.

Here is some historical perspective about using placebos while people are
getting infected and dying:

* [https://rootsofprogress.org/polio-and-the-controversy-over-r...](https://rootsofprogress.org/polio-and-the-controversy-over-randomized-clinical-trials)

* [https://rootsofprogress.org/more-on-polio-and-randomized-cli...](https://rootsofprogress.org/more-on-polio-and-randomized-clinical-trials)

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xiphias2
Why was it even allowed? Isn't there some requirement for a trial to be called
Phase 3?

A Google search resulted in this:

The third step in testing an experimental drug (or other treatment) in humans.
Phase 3 trials are conducted to confirm and expand on safety and effectiveness
results from Phase 1 and 2 trials, to compare the drug to standard therapies
for the disease or condition being studied, and to evaluate the overall risks
and benefits of the drug.

[https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04292899](https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04292899)

,,Study to Evaluate the Safety and Antiviral Activity of Remdesivir (GS-5734™)
in Participants With Severe Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19)''

The title doesn't contain Efficacy :(

A better clinical trial (but with fewer participants) will be run in Norwegia,
but we're supposed to get results only in August. I don't understand why we're
losing so much time by not running studies all the time.

[https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04321616?term=Remdesi...](https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04321616?term=Remdesivir&draw=2&rank=8)

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glennericksen
Norwegia aka Norway :)

"Because Indonesians come from Indonesia, and Russians come from Russia,
Norwegians come from Norwegia." \- Urban Dictionary

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perl4ever
Recently I learned that the demonym for San Marino is "Sammarinese".

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refurb
_At his wife’s urging, Michalak went to the University of Chicago Medicine
hospital on Friday, April 3....and recovered enough to be discharged from the
hospital on Tuesday, April 7._

That's pretty impressive to be a severe case of COVID and be discharged 4 days
later.

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wbhart
True, but that could be a single cherry-picked example just for the article.
It does sound like the typical case might not be too far off that though,
which is potentially very good news.

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refurb
Of course. It’s one patient with no control.

Still, that seems like a quick recovery drug or not.

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vardump
Company says their product test performance is great. News at 11.

Cautiously optimistic, let's hope and see. And not be too disappointed if this
turns out to be nothing.

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robodale
If this goes sour...stock market go down arrow.

(It's been propped up on hopes treatments like this will work).

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Lidador
I've heard Gilead was a fake news hoax planted by Adam Feuerstein...

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smallgovt
Stock futures are up 3% on this news so there appears to be something to this.

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jandrese
3% in the futures market is just noise.

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smallgovt
If you were doubting that the +3% market movement was primarily driven by this
news, take a look at the markets at 12:40PM today when negative news of
clinical trials for the drug were released. Again, direct minute by minute
correlation btw SPY dropping and GILD news.

