Chi­na re­searchers tout in vit­ro da­ta for Gilead­'s an­tivi­ral against Wuhan virus — which they are try­ing to patent

There’s no de­fin­i­tive proof yet that Gilead’s remde­sivir works as a treat­ment for 2019-nCov, but re­searchers in Chi­na clear­ly con­sid­er it promis­ing enough to have ap­plied for a patent on its use to com­bat the coro­n­avirus virus out­break stem­ming from Wuhan.

Amid world­wide vig­i­lance over what many fear is be­com­ing a pan­dem­ic, sci­en­tists from the Wuhan In­sti­tute of Vi­rol­o­gy and Na­tion­al En­gi­neer­ing Re­search Cen­ter for the Emer­gency Drug said they have test­ed a to­tal of sev­en drugs in vit­ro — and found remde­sivir and the malar­ia treat­ment chloro­quine most ef­fec­tive against the nov­el coro­n­avirus.

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