Beware declarations of Covid-19 victory
The early days of the coronavirus crisis brought an onslaught of press releases from microcap biotech companies, each promising that its previously obscure pipeline held the key to stopping Covid-19. Now, many of those would-be world-savers are due to present actual data, and it would be wise to approach with skepticism.
As STAT’s Adam Feuerstein reports, CytoDyn, which spent all of 2019 as a penny stock, is nearing the end of a clinical trial testing its repurposed HIV drug in Covid-19. And the company looks poised to declare a spurious victory.
The trial, which enrolled 75 patients, defines success as improving fever, muscle ache, shortness of breath, and cough. Those are imprecise metrics that don’t necessarily lend themselves to definitive results. By contrast, Gilead Sciences’ remdesivir study looked at death, intubation, use of oxygen, and hospitalization.
Read more.
As STAT’s Adam Feuerstein reports, CytoDyn, which spent all of 2019 as a penny stock, is nearing the end of a clinical trial testing its repurposed HIV drug in Covid-19. And the company looks poised to declare a spurious victory.
The trial, which enrolled 75 patients, defines success as improving fever, muscle ache, shortness of breath, and cough. Those are imprecise metrics that don’t necessarily lend themselves to definitive results. By contrast, Gilead Sciences’ remdesivir study looked at death, intubation, use of oxygen, and hospitalization.
Read more.
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