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Dow jumps 530 points after Gilead reported ‘positive data’ for its experimental coronavirus treatment

by www.dailymail.co.uk

U.S. stock indexes jumped on Wednesday after Gilead Sciences said its experimental antiviral drug met the main goal of a trial testing it in COVID-19 patients.

At the closing bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 532.31 points, or 2.21 percent, at 24,633.86. The S&P 500 was up more than 2 percent and Nasdaq composite rose more than 3 percent. 

Gilead said Wednesday that preliminary results of a coronavirus drug trial showed at least 50 percent of patients treated with a 5-day dosage of antiviral drug remdesivir improved and more than half were discharged from the hospital within two weeks.

Markets have been watching closely for any sign of when Americans will be able get back to work, and immediately rose at the prospect of an effective treatment for the virus that has shuttered the economy. 

Robert Glorioso, the New York Stock Exchange’s Chief of Building Engineering Operations, rings the opening bell on Wednesday to thank Cody Scott and Delta team members for distributing medical face shields to health professionals fighting COVID-19

A five-day view of Gilead stock shows the shares rising sharply at the open on Wednesday

Trading in Gilead shares was halted during pre-market trading as the company issued its press release announcing the new trial data.

Gilead stock shot up on the news, rising 6.75 percent in midday trading. 

Meanwhile, new data showed the U.S. economy contracted in the first quarter at its sharpest pace since the Great Recession, ending the longest expansion in history. 

Data from the Commerce Department said gross domestic product fell at a 4.8 percent annualized rate in the January-to-March period, while economists in a Reuters poll were expecting a contraction of 4 percent. 

However, markets were bolstered by a solid earnings reports from Google-parent Alphabet, and Boeing provided some optimism as the country moved cautiously to ease lockdowns.

Alphabet Inc jumped 7.1 percent in premarket trading as a drop in Google ad sales steadied in April and some consumers returned to using the search engine for shopping in addition to finding coronavirus information.

‘This is helping to reinforce the market leadership,’ said Edward Park, deputy chief investment officer at London-based firm Brooks Macdonald.

Park added that positive results from companies like Alphabet added to the narrative that technology-related names have been less disrupted by coronavirus and therefore should continue to outperform.

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Music streamer Spotify reported on Wednesday morning that its paid music subscribers surged to 130 million in the first quarter

Boeing reported a loss for the second straight quarter, but shares jumped 4 percent as the planemaker said it was confident of obtaining sufficient liquidity to fund its operations going forward. 

Music streamer Spotify also reported on Wednesday morning that its paid music subscribers surged to 130 million in the first quarter, as its business model proved more resilient than expected in the coronavirus lockdowns.

While usage on mobile devices and in cars dropped in the last few weeks of March, usage on video game consoles such as Microsoft’s Xbox and Sony’s PlayStation surged during the first quarter. 

‘Work from home appears to be increasing streaming services in general, so we don’t see users choosing between Netflix and Spotify,’ Cascend Securities analyst Eric Ross said. 

General Electric Co fell 5.9 percent after its industrial businesses took a $1 billion hit to cash flow in the first quarter and warned the damage would worsen in the next three months.

A view of the Fearless Girl statue with New York Stock Exchange in Wall Street on Tuesday

Wall Street’s main indexes closed down on Tuesday, as investors shifted out of growth stocks and into more value-oriented cyclical companies.

But the main indexes have recovered 30 percent from their lows in March, boosted by aggressive stimulus efforts and, more recently, hopes of an economic revival as states begin to relax lockdown measures.

The U.S. economy contracted in the first quarter at its sharpest pace since the Great Recession as strict lockdown measures curbed consumer activity, ending the longest expansion in the nation’s history. 

Next up is a policy decision from the Federal Reserve and more corporate earnings reports from technology heavyweight Microsoft, social media giant Facebook and electric car-maker Tesla after the bell.

The Fed is slated to issue its policy statement at the end of its two-day meeting on Wednesday at 2pm, where the central bank is anticipated to reiterate its promise to do whatever it takes to support the world’s largest economy.

Ebola drug remdesivir shows promise in coronavirus treatment, Gilead trial results reveal 

A trial of the antiviral drug remdesivir has produced ‘positive data’ for treating coronavirus patients, its maker, Gilead Sciences, said Wednesday. 

Gilead announced the results of a clinical trial testing the drug, which was originally developed to treat Ebola patients, in people severely ill with coronavirus. 

Half of the 397 patients, who were sick enough to need additional oxygen, but not to be placed on ventilators, improved within 10 days of a five-day treatment course and those who were on a 10-day regimen were better by the eleventh day. 

More than half of the patients were discharged from the hospital within two weeks, Gilead announced in a press release.

Gilead Science’s remdesivir showed promising trial results after the company announced Wednesday that more than half of patients treated with the drug recovered within two weeks

Remdesivir has been among the top contenders of existing drugs being trialled for treating coronavirus, although World Health Organization documents leaked last week suggested it had failed to help patients in a more than 200-person trial recover.

Gilead defended the trial, saying it believed the leaked data was a ‘mischaracterization’ of the study’s results. 

It’s unclear whether the newly-announced results are from the same trial. 

For the phase 3 trial announced Wednesday, Gilead treated 397 severely ill patients with its antiviral drug. 

The company’s Wednesday press release did not specify the locations of the patients. However, it announced in March the initiation of two trials of the drug, one of which would study 400 patients in the Hubei Province of China, where coronavirus first emerged.  

The ages and sexes of those patients were not disclosed.  

Severely ill coronavirus patients, like those treated in the remdesivir trial, require oxygen to keep them alive, including mechanical ventilation (pictured). Safe treatments for these people are badly needed, as an estimated 80% of those put on ventilators will not survive (file) 

The company tried two different treatment regimens for severely ill coronavirus patients – a five-day and 10-day course – but did not include a control arm of patients who did not receive the drug. 

COVID-19 is considered ‘severe’ if a patient is hospitalized and needs supplemental oxygen. 

Among those who were treated for five days, 60 percent could go home by day 14. 

In the 10-day treatment group, 52 percent were discharged within two weeks. 

Full recovery was achieved on the same timeline by 53.8 percent of the 10-day treatment group, and by 64.5 percent of people in the five-day treatment group. 

‘These data are encouraging as they indicate that patients who received a shorter, 5-day course of remdesivir experienced similar clinical improvement as patients who received a 10-day treatment course,’ said Dr Aruna Subramanian, a Stanford University infectious diseases professor who helped lead the study.  

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