Adriana santagati
10/03/2020 - 12:54
Clarín.com
Society
The president of the United States, Donald Trump, is admitted to the Walter Reed hospital and there they are treating him with a drug that so far has shown to be
one of the most promising
to face the coronavirus: the antiviral
remdesivir
.
This drug is the first to be authorized for the treatment of coronavirus: it had already been approved in May in the United States and at the beginning of July in Europe.
Since July it is also being tested in Argentina, as part of the
"Solidarity" study
promoted by the World Health Organization.
Remdesivir had been developed for Ebola, but since it was not very useful for this virus, research was discontinued.
But SARS-COV2 was found to be sensitive to this antiviral in vitro, and it then became one of the first drugs to be studied for the treatment of coronavirus.
How is its mechanism of action?
It slows down the production of new virus particles and this causes
the infection to develop slower and patients to recover faster
.
In the clinical trials that have been carried out so far, it showed promising results, which first led to it being approved by the FDA and the European health agency giving it a "conditional" authorization due to the exceptional nature of the pandemic.
"It was recommended in the guide of the National Institutes of Health", pointed out last week about this drug Anthony Fauci, the leading expert in infectious diseases in the US, at the XVII Scientific Symposium of the Host Foundation and explained that "it demonstrated a
significant reduction in time to recovery
in hospitalized patients with advanced lung disease ".
The study "Solidarity"
Remdesivir is produced by
the American pharmaceutical company Gilead
, a laboratory with cutting-edge research that has important drugs for HIV and hepatitis C. It is one of the drugs that is being tested globally in the "Solidarity" trial, which is being carried out The OMS.
In Argentina it is implemented by the Ministry of Health of the Nation, and 10 hospitals participate in five districts (Capital, Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, Córdoba and Chaco), which represent a geographic diversity and are the ones that showed the most complex indicators at the time. the study started.
Vials of remdesivir, the drug produced by the Gilead laboratory and which will be tested next week in Argentina.
(EFE)
The study was undergoing modifications throughout its development.
For example, the trial with the controversial hydroxychloroquine was discontinued, showing no effectiveness.
Regarding remdesivir, the infectologist Gustavo Lopardo, local coordinator of “Solidarity”, recently explained to
Clarín
that "its impact is being analyzed. The 'Solidaridad' study has enrolled
more patients in remdesivir than all the rest of the
smaller
studies
that were made. So it can probably give us some results as well. "
There were two previous previous studies with a small percentage of patients and a third with an already more significant sample, of 1,063 volunteers, which was the one on which the US and European health agencies relied.
This trial did show a
greater tendency for improvement
among those who received it and, also,
lower mortality
among patients who received remdesivir.
Another study, with 397 patients, analyzed the application time and found that the results were similar in a treatment of five days than in one of 10, which is also a
positive indicator
because it reduces the time in which it must be administered.
It is not a minor fact, because being intravenously, the patient must be hospitalized.
The question of price
While these investigations are ongoing, there are countries that are already securing batches of the drug with
Gilead, which set the price per dose at $ 390, which is worth $ 2,300 per full treatment per patient.
A few months ago, Gilead assured that it had reached agreements with producers of generic drugs in developing countries to be able to offer the treatment at a lower price and facilitate its access worldwide.
“There is
an issue in Argentina for the price
and the possibility that compulsory licenses will eventually be granted for national production at cheaper prices.
There are already presentations in that sense, ”Rubén Sajem, director of the Center for Argentine Pharmaceutical Professionals (Ceprofar), told this newspaper.
ACE