COVID-19 therapies

[BostonCard]

A couple notables:

Eli Lilly snagged an EUA for baricitinib, a rheumatoid arthritis drug that showed some benefit for COVID-19.

https://investor.lilly.com/news-releases...-treatment

The benefit is modest:

• 1 day improvement in time to recovery (from 8 to 7 days)
  
• Better clinical status at day 15
  
• Fewer patients progressed to a ventilator or died  (23% for baricitinib plus remdisivir compared to 28% for remdesivir alone)
  
• An improvement in mortality (4.7% for baricitinib plus remdisivir compared to 7.1% for remdesivir alone) that was not statistically signficant
  
• Fewer adverse events
  

On the other hand, the WHO has recommended against the use of remdisivir in hospitalized patients with COVID-19

https://www.bmj.com/company/newsroom/who...-covid-19/

The antiviral drug remdesivir is not suggested for patients admitted to hospital with covid-19, regardless of how severely ill they are, because there is currently no evidence that it improves survival or the need for ventilation, say a WHO Guideline Development Group (GDG) panel of international experts in The BMJ today.

BC

[newguy]

speaking of EUA's, Pfizer officially requested one for their vaccine today.
and it can't come soon enough.

[BostonCard]

Mark your calendar.  The FDA's vaccine advisory council is meeting Dec. 10.

https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-an...19-vaccine

BC

[dabigv13]

Crossing my fingers I get one soon before they start trying to draft me into the ICU again! They say between Moderna and Pfizer they should have 40 million shots/20 million patients treatable by the end of the year. There are approximately 17 to 18 million healthcare workers in the US so hopefully this time the pronouncements are accurate.

Still have my doubts about how the distribution will work. Have seen very little details about that.