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