Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Taxpayers Have Poured Millions Into Remdesivir's Development, But Won't Have A Say On Pricing
The drug that buoyed expectations for a coronavirus treatment and drew international attention for Gilead Sciences, remdesivir, started as a reject, an also-ran in the search for antiviral drugs. Its path to relevance didn’t begin until Robert Jordan plucked it from mothballs. A Gilead scientist at the time, Jordan convinced the company seven years ago to let him assemble a library of 1,000 castoff molecules in a search for medicines to treat emerging viruses. Many viral illnesses threaten human health but don’t attract commercial interest because they lack potential for huge drug sales. (Rowland, 5/26)
Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie fired back at critics of his agency's use of a controversial drug touted by President Donald Trump to treat COVID-19 patients in an interview with ABC News Chief Global Affairs Correspondent Martha Raddatz on Tuesday. After the VA reported last week it had treated roughly 1,300 coronavirus patients with hydroxychloroquine -- a drug widely used in clinical trials that hasn't yet been shown to be effective -- Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer asked Friday whether veterans were being treated like "guinea pigs." (Seyler, 5/26)
President Donald Trump’s surprise announcement last week that he’d been taking the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine as a safeguard against contracting Covid-19 spurred alarm in the medical community, where scientists have cast doubt on the drug’s ability to treat coronavirus and raised warnings about its safety. But despite weeks in which Trump has fervently pushed hydroxychloroquine as a potential miracle drug, a new poll found that more voters came down on the side of scientists. (Oprysko, 5/26)
The World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday promised a swift review of data on hydroxychloroquine, probably by mid-June, after safety concerns prompted the group to suspend the malaria drug’s use in a large trial on COVID-19 patients. (Miller, 5/26)
The French health ministry is banning the use of the hydroxychloroquine as a cure to coronovirus, according to a decree published Wednesday morning. "Whether [in doctors offices] in the cities or in the hospital, this ... should not be prescribed for patients with COVID-19," the ministry said in a statement. (Braun, 5/27)
