Gilead, Biotechs Gain Amid Market Rout on Virus Cure Hopes
Gilead Among Lone Gainers as Antiviral Case Reports Roll In
(Bloomberg) -- Gilead Sciences Inc. gained the most among the trio of advancers in the S&P 500 Index Wednesday, climbing despite a market rout as investors focus on reports of patients getting the biotech company’s antiviral medicine for the novel coronavirus.
The stock rose 1.6%, paring a 4.2% jump after a doctor went on CNBC to discuss already known results from the first U.S. patient to be treated with remdesivir. In two more case reports out of France, one person who received the drug died while another recovered after 22 days, an RBC analyst said.
“It is difficult to ascribe this recovery definitively to remdesivir,” RBC’s Brian Abrahams wrote in a note. He called the results “mixed.”
The analyst said the drug has at most a 50/50 shot of succeeding against Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. Investors are looking for an update on remdesivir by April. The World Health Organization declared the spread of the disease a pandemic on Wednesday.
Gilead told Bloomberg Law on Tuesday that hundreds of coronavirus patients have been treated with the experimental medicine under a U.S. Food and Drug Administration program to allow access to unapproved drugs.
Two biotech stocks are also working on vaccines for the disease, Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Moderna Inc. Inovio surged more than 40% while Moderna posted single-digit gains. Companies that work on protective gear to slow the spread of the disease and firms developing diagnostic tests also rallied, with Alpha Pro Tech Ltd., Lakeland Industries Inc. and Co-Diagnostics Inc. all gaining by double-digit percentages on Wednesday.
To contact the reporter on this story: Cristin Flanagan in New York at cflanagan1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Catherine Larkin at clarkin4@bloomberg.net, Kristine Owram
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