Remdesivir was developed through an academic-corporate partnership between Gilead Sciences and Ralph Baric’s lab at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Gillings School of Global Public Health.
Remdesivir was developed through an academic-corporate partnership between Gilead Sciences and Ralph Baric’s lab at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Gillings School of Global Public Health.
Remdesivir: The Ebola drug reject taxpayers have spent $70.5M on . . . so far [2020]
Remdesivir is a drug looking for a market. In January 2020, Fierce Biotech ran an article about Gilead’s plan to cash in othe the coronavirus pandemic with a drug that it hadn’t been able to make any money on yet:
“Gilead Sciences is considering repositioning . . . remdesivir as a treatment for the coronavirus now sweeping across parts of China. The antiviral last made headlines when Gilead tested it, with little success, as a treatment for Ebola virus.
“As happened during the Ebola outbreak, the surge in cases of infection with a potentially fatal strain of the coronavirus in parts of China has led to a flurry of statements from biotechs with assets they claim could help keep the virus under control.
“Based on previous outbreaks, few, if any, of the programs now being talked up will lead to drugs that make a difference, either therapeutically or commercially . . . Gilead has a drug that has already been tested in humans. That positions Gilead to respond more quickly to the outbreak, although it also leaves scope to doubt whether it has a drug capable of tackling coronavirus.
“Gilead pushed remdesivir forward quickly in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases in response to the West African Ebola virus epidemic that began in 2013. The R&D program culminated in a randomized controlled clinical trial that tested remdesivir and three other drugs in patients with Ebola.
“The trial found two of the drugs were more effective than remdesivir, putting an end to efforts to establish [it] as a treatment option in Ebola.”
Public Citizen estimates that taxpayers have, so far, contributed at least $70.5 million to develop remdesivir, and argues that if it turns out it works, Americans shouldn’t have to pay twice for it. Instead, remdesivir should be distributed to patients for free through a public health system.
But, this begs another question: Is all the money that has been invested in—and could be made from—this drug, preventing the government from being objective as to the drug’s actual promise?
Critics say Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, skewed results of the remdesivir trials—and still got weak results.
Meryl Nass, in her blog post, “Faking Results: Fauci’s NIAID-paid Remdesivir Study Changed Its Outcome Measures Twice, in Order to Show Even a Whiff of Benefit,” writes:
“Fauci … has done the unthinkable in medicine: changed the goalposts, twice, on his remdesivir study in order to provide the appearance of benefit. Even then, benefit was quite small.”
This surely has nothing to do with the fact that at least eight members of the NIH panel that writes COVID guidelines have financial interests in Gilead Sciences.
Remdesivir was developed through an academic-corporate partnership between Gilead Sciences and Ralph Baric’s lab at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Gillings School of Global Public Health.
https://sph.unc.edu/sph-news/remdesivir-developed-at-unc-chapel-hill-proves-effective-against-covid-19-in-niaid-human-clinical-trials/
Remdesivir: The Ebola drug reject taxpayers have spent $70.5M on . . . so far [2020]
Remdesivir is a drug looking for a market. In January 2020, Fierce Biotech ran an article about Gilead’s plan to cash in othe the coronavirus pandemic with a drug that it hadn’t been able to make any money on yet:
“Gilead Sciences is considering repositioning . . . remdesivir as a treatment for the coronavirus now sweeping across parts of China. The antiviral last made headlines when Gilead tested it, with little success, as a treatment for Ebola virus.
“As happened during the Ebola outbreak, the surge in cases of infection with a potentially fatal strain of the coronavirus in parts of China has led to a flurry of statements from biotechs with assets they claim could help keep the virus under control.
“Based on previous outbreaks, few, if any, of the programs now being talked up will lead to drugs that make a difference, either therapeutically or commercially . . . Gilead has a drug that has already been tested in humans. That positions Gilead to respond more quickly to the outbreak, although it also leaves scope to doubt whether it has a drug capable of tackling coronavirus.
“Gilead pushed remdesivir forward quickly in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases in response to the West African Ebola virus epidemic that began in 2013. The R&D program culminated in a randomized controlled clinical trial that tested remdesivir and three other drugs in patients with Ebola.
“The trial found two of the drugs were more effective than remdesivir, putting an end to efforts to establish [it] as a treatment option in Ebola.”
Public Citizen estimates that taxpayers have, so far, contributed at least $70.5 million to develop remdesivir, and argues that if it turns out it works, Americans shouldn’t have to pay twice for it. Instead, remdesivir should be distributed to patients for free through a public health system.
But, this begs another question: Is all the money that has been invested in—and could be made from—this drug, preventing the government from being objective as to the drug’s actual promise?
Critics say Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, skewed results of the remdesivir trials—and still got weak results.
Meryl Nass, in her blog post, “Faking Results: Fauci’s NIAID-paid Remdesivir Study Changed Its Outcome Measures Twice, in Order to Show Even a Whiff of Benefit,” writes:
“Fauci … has done the unthinkable in medicine: changed the goalposts, twice, on his remdesivir study in order to provide the appearance of benefit. Even then, benefit was quite small.”
This surely has nothing to do with the fact that at least eight members of the NIH panel that writes COVID guidelines have financial interests in Gilead Sciences.
https://organicconsumers.org/dr-coronavirus-hunter-ralph-baric-preparing-us-pandemic-or-putting-us-peril-one/
This is a mere fraction of the story.
It’s just what I knew in 2020. Can’t wait to hear what you’ve dug up since then!
If you use the Wayback Machine, you find that 9 of the 56 members of the treatment guideline panel started out declaring Gilead ties.
https://web.archive.org/web/20200422155524/https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/panel-financial-disclosure/
Within a short time, that number narrowed to 7.
https://covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/panel-financial-disclosure/
The two did not drop out. They just altered their declarations.
Fauci has a financial interest in Gilead.