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Gilead prices Remdesivir at $2,340 for a five-day treatment

Gilead Sciences Inc has priced its COVID-19 drug candidate remdesivir at $2,340 for a five-day treatment in the United States and some other developed countries, potentially reflecting looming competition from a cheap steroid.

Remdesivir is at the forefront of the fight against COVID-19 after the anti-viral treatment helped shorten hospital recovery times in a clinical trial. It has been approved for emergency use in some patients in the United States.

The remdesivir price for U.S. private insurance companies will be $520 per vial, Gilead said, which equates to $3,120 per patient for a treatment course of six vials.

Gilead has linked up with generic drugmakers based in India and Pakistan, including Cipla Ltd and Hetero Labs Ltd, to make and supply remdesivir in 127 developing countries.

Cipla’s version is priced at less than 5,000 Indian rupees ($66.24), while Hetero Lab’s version is priced at 5,400 rupees.

Source: Medscape

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FDA approves atezolizumab + bevacizumab for advanced HCC

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Tecentriq® (atezolizumab) in combination with Avastin® (bevacizumab) for the treatment of people with unresectable or metastatic hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) who have not received prior systemic therapy.

Atezolizumab is a monoclonal antibody designed to bind with a protein called PD-L1, which is expressed on tumour cells and tumour-infiltrating immune cells, blocking its interactions with both PD-1 and B7.1 receptors. By inhibiting PD-L1, it may enable the activation of T-cells.

Bevacizumab is a biologic antibody designed to specifically bind to a protein called VEGF that plays an important role throughout the lifecycle of the tumour to develop and maintain blood vessels, a process known as angiogenesis. It is designed to interfere with the tumour blood supply by directly binding to the VEGF protein to prevent interactions with receptors on blood vessel cells. The tumour blood supply is thought to be critical to a tumour’s ability to grow and spread in the body (metastasis).

Source: Roche, fda.gov

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Major breakthrough in coronavirus treatment

Dexamethasone ‘Major Breakthrough’ in coronavirus treatment

Dexamethasone reduces deaths by up to a third in hospitalised patients with severe respiratory complications of COVID-19, the University of Oxford’s, UK randomised recovery trial has found.

“It is a major breakthrough,” Co-Chief Investigator, Peter Horby, professor of emerging infectious diseases in the Nuffield Department of Medicine, told a news briefing. “The results are sufficiently clear, we can announce the results today and people could be treated this evening or tomorrow.”

A total of 2104 patients were randomised to receive dexamethasone 6mg once per day by mouth or by intravenous injection for 10 days and were compared with 4321 patients randomised to usual care alone.

Dexamethasone reduced deaths by one-third in ventilated patients (rate ratio 0.65 [95% confidence interval 0.48 to 0.88]; p=0.0003) and by one fifth in other patients receiving oxygen only (0.80 [0.67 to 0.96]; p=0.0021). There was no benefit among those patients who did not require respiratory support (1.22 [0.86 to 1.75; p=0.14). Government Chief Medical Adviser Professor Chris Whitty called it “the most important trial result for COVID-19 so far”.

The World Health Organization (WHO) also said that initial clinical trial results from Oxford University showed dexamethasone, a steroid, to be lifesaving for critically ill covid-19 patients.

Source: Medscape

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Ankit Bharat MD performs 1st lung transplant for COVID-19 patient

A woman in her 20s received a double-lung transplant last week after the coronavirus damaged her respiratory system, Northwestern Medicine in Chicago.

The woman spent 6 weeks in the hospital’s COVID ICU on a ventilator and life support. In early June, her lungs developed irreversible damage, and she was listed for a double transplant. Within 48 hours, the team was able to perform the procedure.

“A lung transplant was her only chance for survival,” Ankit Bharat, MD, chief of thoracic surgery and surgical director of the hospital’s lung transplant program, said in the news release. Organ transplants may become more common in severe cases of COVID-19, Ankit Bharat. The coronavirus affects the lungs most often, but it can also damage the heart, kidneys, blood vessels, and nervous system.

“We want other transplant centres to know that while the transplant procedure in these patients is quite technically challenging, it can be done safely,” he said. “It offers the terminally ill COVID-19 patients another option for survival.” The patient tested negative for COVID-19 before she was placed on the transplant list.