Gilead dusts off a failed Ebo­la drug as coro­n­avirus spreads; Ex­elix­is boasts pos­i­tive Ph I/II da­ta

→ Less than a year ago Gilead‘s an­tivi­ral remde­sivir failed to make the cut as in­ves­ti­ga­tors con­sid­ered a raft of po­ten­tial drugs that could be used against an Ebo­la out­break. But it may gain a new mis­sion with the out­break of the coro­n­avirus in Chi­na, which is pop­ping up now around the world.

Gilead put out a state­ment say­ing that they’re now in dis­cus­sions with health of­fi­cials in the US and Chi­na about test­ing their NUC against the virus. It’s the lat­est in a grow­ing line­up of bio­phar­ma com­pa­nies that are mar­shal­ing R&D forces to see if they can come up with a vac­cine or ther­a­py to blunt the spread of the virus, which has now sick­ened hun­dreds, killed at least 17 peo­ple and led the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment to start quar­an­ti­ning cities.

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