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Early results released from a closely watched clinical trial on Gilead Sciences' antiviral drug remdesivir showed "quite good news," White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said this week. Covid-19 patients who took remdesivir usually recovered after 11 days, four days faster than those who didn't take the drug, he said. As hopes for a coronavirus treatment are high, President Donald Trump said he's "in charge" of the fast-track work to produce a vaccine. More on the outbreak below.
Also this week, Meg Tirrell interviewed former Baltimore Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen in an in-depth livestream. Among the questions: do promising drug trial results mean we're closer to an end of this pandemic and what's it like to be a non-Covid hospital patient right now? Watch it on cnbc.com or listen to our podcast.
Update: We're excited to share the agenda is now live for our Healthy Returns Summit. We're just two weeks away and still accepting registrants, so request an invitation and learn more at cnbcevents.com/healthyreturns.
| | FDA works to make remdesivir available 'as quickly as possible' | The Food and Drug Administration has been in "sustained and ongoing" discussions with Gilead to make remdesivir available to patients with Covid-19 "as quickly as possible," the agency told me this week. The New York Times reported that the FDA plans to announce an emergency use authorization, meaning doctors will be allowed to use the drug on patients hospitalized with the disease even though the drug has not been formally approved by the agency. And while hopes for remdesivir are high, U.S. health officials and scientists also caution new data on the drug still needs to be properly peer-reviewed.
- Berkeley Lovelace Jr. | | | | How a handful of Apple and Google employees helped trace coronavirus | One of the most ambitious projects in Apple history – dubbed "Project Bubble" – launched in less than a month and was driven by just a handful of employees. Apple is known for its perfectionist approach to design, but the company pushed forward a developer toolkit for contact tracing in less than a month. In another twist, it agreed to join forces on the project with its historic rival, Google. The idea behind Project Bubble is to help public health departments get ahead of the Covid-19 virus by monitoring potential exposure via cell phones, while preserving privacy as much as possible. It got a green-light when Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai met (virtually, of course) to hash out the details. The software, which takes the form of an application programming interface or API, goes live on May 1.
- Chrissy Farr | | | | Doctors on the brink of collapse | The sharp pullback in non-Covid care is causing huge financial strains on physician practices. Many, like Dr. Laura Heisler, have virtually no revenue coming in. She's only seen a handful of emergency cases since the virus spiked last month. Then she got shut out of the first round of PPP loans, while her bank helped some big biotech firms get millions. "It makes me feel very unimportant in the world," she said.
- Bertha Coombs | | | | Virus combines with existing humanitarian crises to create 'double emergency' | The coronavirus could infect up to one billion people and kill 3.2 million people in 34 "crisis-affected countries" as the pandemic exacerbates humanitarian crises, the International Rescue Committee said in a new report earlier this week. The analysis includes countries in war zones such as Afghanistan and Syria, as well as countries suffering from persistent poverty before the pandemic, including Greece and Venezuela. "These numbers should serve as a wake-up call: the full, devastating and disproportionate weight of this pandemic has yet to be felt in the world's most fragile and war-torn countries," CEO of the committee David Miliband said. Existing humanitarian crises combined with the Covid-19 crisis could create a "double emergency" for vulnerable countries, the IRC warned.
- Will Feuer | | | | Quest Diagnostics rolls out direct-to-consumer coronavirus antibody tests | Quest Diagnostics announced this week that individuals can now skip a doctor's visit and order a coronavirus antibody test online in a push to broaden Covid-19 screening. Quest screens patients online to determine whether or not an antibody test is appropriate and then sends them to have their blood drawn at one of the company's 2,200 laboratories, Quest said in a statement. The results are available within one to two days after a blood sample is taken, the company said. The test costs $119, according to Quest's website. LabCorp began to offer antibody testing at some Walgreens stores on Monday. The drugstore chain now has the blood tests at more than 100 LabCorp centers within its stores.
- Noah Higgins-Dunn | | | | Health care spending plunge sinks Q1 economy | You read that right. After years of outpacing inflation, consumer health care spending plunged 18 percent in the first quarter, making it one of the leading contributors to the decline in GDP. The shutdown of non-emergency surgery, most non-Covid medical care and dental practices during the coronavirus crisis has far outweighed the increased spending on the virus response.
- Bertha Coombs | | Healthy Returns Virtual Summit | May 12, 2020
The path forward for the health care industry at a time of unprecedented challenges
CNBC presents a virtual event featuring top health care CEOs, technologists and investors, exploring the ways the most innovative companies are addressing the coronavirus crisis, and the lasting effects the crisis will have on the industry.
Led by CNBC's anchors and reporters, Healthy Returns will hone in on the groundbreaking ideas that will help mitigate the global pandemic, and will transform the health care industry for years to come. | |
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