Good News for Remdesivir Is Good News for Gilead Sciences Stock; More indications that Gilead's drug will become a key treatment for Coronavirus

Investor Place ^ | 04/08/2020 | By Larry Ramer

[SeekAndFind]

Signs are mounting that Gilead’s (NASDAQ:GILD) remdesivir is at least somewhat effective in treating the novel coronavirus. Those signs are positive for the world, and for GILD stock.

On April 3, the European Medicines Agency (EMA), the European Union’s equivalent of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, recommended that remdesivir be approved for compassionate use.

According to the EMA, “These [compassionate use] programmes are only put in place if the medicine is expected to help patients with life-threatening, long-lasting or seriously debilitating illnesses, which cannot be treated satisfactorily with any currently authorised medicine.”

The agency reported that remdesivir is active against the novel coronavirus, at least in laboratory settings. But that report is not new information. I find it difficult to believe the agency approved remdesivir for compassionate use without evidence the drug was actually effective.

Expanded Access Programs

In late March, Gilead announced it would expand access to remdesivir. Specifically, Gilead meant that it was switching from compassionate use applications to expanded access programs. According to Gilead, this would give more patients access to remdesivir.

And on April 4, the company announced it would seek to produce enough remdesivir to treat 1 million people by the end of 2020.

Gilead undoubtedly has access to a great deal of data about the drug’s effectiveness. With that in mind, I find it difficult to believe it would have taken these steps without clear and convincing evidence.

Gilead is choosing to provide the drug to thousands of more sick people. If it proves ineffective, its reputation would take a meaningful hit. Unless Gilead truly believes it is at least somewhat effective, I doubt it would go through with these expanded access programs.

Anecdotes Show Promise

Multiple anecdotes suggest that remdesivir can help very sick coronavirus patients. For example, a 79-year-old Italian began taking remdesivir. After just 12 days he tested negative.

And Chris Kane, a 55-year-old Floridian, had the virus and was suffering from very high fevers and breathing difficulties. He says that 48 hours after taking the drug, his “temperature dropped dramatically” and his breathing improved.

An Important Threat

One threat to GILD stock is hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug that’s been around for decades. Hydroxychloroquine has shown significant promise as a treatment for the coronavirus, and many doctors in Europe and some in the U.S. are now prescribing it.

Still, hydroxychloroquine was not significantly more effective than an alternative treatment in at least one trial. Moreover, one doctor who has studied the drug’s efficacy as a treatment for the coronavirus has a mixed view on it.

“I predict that [hydroxychloroquine] will have a modest effect on coronavirus and that other antivirals will also be very useful,” Dr. Drew Pinsky said on his podcast. “I think we’ll hit the virus in multiple ways and in multiple sites and we’ll start to get guidance on when we use which medication.”

The Bottom Line on GILD Stock

Reading the tea leaves, I believe there is a very high chance that remdesivir is effective against the coronavirus. What about the risks? Although hydroxychloroquine will probably also have some efficacy, I tend to agree with Pinsky’s assessment. We will use multiple drugs to fight the virus.

Finally, as I’ve stated in the past, I believe that remdesivir can meaningfully move the needle for Gilead from a financial standpoint.

Gilead said it would provide remdesivir for free for 140,000 patients. But I’m not worried about that. In the coming quarters, given that 1 million people have already tested positive for the coronavirus, the drug will be lucrative for the company.

To conclude, I recommend buying GILD stock now.

[Trump.Deplorable]

Don’t let Doctor Doom know about this....

[txrefugee]

Isn’t this the one Fauci has stock in?

[Real Cynic No More]

If you own stock in Gilead, you have an obligation to disclose. Your articles smell of “pumping”. By means of disclosure, I do own a few shares and have been watching it. It has not moved out of a trading range in weeks.

[Zhang Fei]

One course of treatment and done drugs, in a time of pandemic, when drug companies are under unprecedented scrutiny, are unlikely to be profitable. I predict this will be breakeven at best for Gilead. For Gilead shareholders, it’s probably annoying that the drug should end up being sacrificed in the interests of PR, but it wasn’t like it was doing much for Ebola patients, at whose treatment it failed, despite being created expressly for that purpose.

[desertfreedom765]

If this works better than hydroxychloroquine, great use it.

What ever medicine we have that works is cheap compared to shutting down the economy for good.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: If this works better than hydroxychloroquine, great use it.

Of course. But remember, it will be orders of a magnitude MORE EXPENSIVE than HCQ.

It would be best to compare their efficacy side by side.

[Zhang Fei]

[If you own stock in Gilead, you have an obligation to disclose. Your articles smell of “pumping”. By means of disclosure, I do own a few shares and have been watching it. It has not moved out of a trading range in weeks.]

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Freepers don’t have the ability to move this ~$100b market cap stock, 85% of whose shareholders are institutional investors. The drug has been mentioned in all the major financial news sites, including Marketwatch and CNBC, both of which are ranked in the top 100. Free Republic is #4,000 on a good day.

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GILD/holders?p=GILD

[july4thfreedomfoundation]

From what I understand, Remdesivir was created to combat the Ebola virus. It didn’t work in regards to that disease.

However, I saw on the TV news several weeks ago an interview with a man in his 50’s, who lives in Washington State.

He was near death with the coronavirus, and the doctors gave him Remdesivir as a last ditch attempt to save him.

His condition quickly improved dramatically, and the gentleman credit his recovery to Remdesivir.

[RegulatorCountry]

The author is straining at gnats in order to write favorably of remdesivir. Look at how hydroxychloroquine has been covered by the medical establishment under very similar circumstances. It really is all about the money.

[353FMG]

It’s cheaper than shutting down our Armed Forces. This drug may be of strategic importance.

[DAC21]

This drug is not approved by the FDA for any indication. It is in early Phase III trials (a couple years out from final data analysis and approval to market) It may well be an effective drug, but the FDA will have to bend like a pretzel to get it out there in any meaningful quantity. If corners are cut....FOLLOW THE MONEY.

[tennmountainman]

How much stock does Dr Death Fauci and Dr Doom Brix own?

[Basket_of_Deplorables]

$1000 parented drug. Fauci will approve, of course.

But the $20, off-patent, no-significant-side-effects, Hydroxychloroquine? Baaaad!

(Dr. Daniel Wallace has spoken about side effects, how we’re being lied to about them)

[aquila48]

I bought some calls a couple weeks, but it hasn’t moved much.

[Mom MD]

The results we have been seeing with hydroxychloroquine are mixed at best. I suspect the answer when we find it will involve a cocktail of drugs not a single agent. My daughter is in an institution where they are studying multiple agents and so far they are not that impressed with hydroxychloroquine in the severely ill. Maybe it’s use will be in the less I’ll. Likely this will require a phased approach. The real issue is 80 + percent of people will do well with no treatment whatsoever. We need to be able to identify those folks so we can concentrate on treating the ones that won’t do well

[Engedi]

This is the one associated with Bill Gates I believe.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: where they are studying multiple agents and so far they are not that impressed with hydroxychloroquine in the severely ill. Maybe it’s use will be in the less I’ll.

If you look at the studies by Dr. Diduer Raoult in Marseilles on over 100 patients and the nearly 800 cases treated by Dr. Vladimir Zelenko in upstate New York, you will understand what Hydroxychloroquine is most effective at.

It is best used in conjunction with Azithromycin and Zinc and at the earlier stages of CoVid-19 illness as soon as symptoms like fever, cough, etc. are manifested.

When you administer these drug combo, it SHORTENS the patient’s time of stay in the hospital by several days and relieves the burden of hospitals. In other words you must administer them as soon as you can, not wait till the patient is so severely ill that he needs to be intubated. It does wonders for patients at the earlier stages of the disease nearly 99% of the time, preventing further disease progression.

What HCQ has NOT been show to be impressive, are for those whose lungs have been destroyed by the virus to a point where they need to be on ventilator.

There are cases where such patients have been saved and many have been posted here in FR, but the efficacy on patients at this later stage is not well established.

It remains to be seen if Remdesivir will do any better for later stage Covid-19 patients.

[cpdiii]

This is classic pump and dump. It would be a great stock to buy as puts in a few weeks I would suspect. It would need to far outperform hydroxychloralqunine in efficacy to be of any value as its costs of treatment would be hundreds of dollars verses just a few dollars.

Neither drug has a “patent license” for corona virus. The use of drugs for “off patent license” is common.

[mosesdapoet]

Everywhere an American looked an item came from this country (China). Now that reliance was being threatened by a change in leadership in America which was a major consumer of those products , When Americans hailed the leaders decision to make many of them in their country. Worse yet opponents to the Chinese regime in power had its citizens protesting its policies since that change in American leadership wave the American flag and present his name when doing so. All of which presented those in power the need to destroy that leader,

Would a runaway plague created by a nation which could threaten populations of an enemy cause them to react by demanding extreme restriction of movement by its population to prevent its spread ? Thus wind up fragmenting its economy.
The way this whole thing developed starting with the Italian fashion industry areas controlled by the Chinese commies hit by a runaway CoVid19. Sure looks suspicious particularly when crews of naval vessels somehow wind up being infected by it.

To stop the return of manufacturing of products back to the US that went to China. China backers are using that Trump alleged stock ownership claim as a controlling interest in a product they claim to be totally ineffective when used to treat a disease created to create a severe restriction of movement known as a shutdown because of its transmission .