“I think that there is a need ... not just to look [at] old drugs, but to double down [on] the effort in terms of screening of potential new drugs,” he added.
Clinical trials of other repurposed drugs, such ashydroxychloroquine and lopinavir/ritonavir, have shown no significant benefits for hospitalized COVID-19 patients. The World Health Organization has also not recommended the use of remdesivir for hospitalized patients based on data from its Solidarity Trials and other large-scale randomized trials that show no evidence the drug improves COVID-19 patients’ outcomes, including survival.
“People at the beginning thought that it was possible to repurpose drugs, so from hydroxychloroquine, to ivermectin, to colchicine, to remdesivir. A long list. But … I think that we can say that we don't see a real opportunity with old drugs … except dexamethasone,” Duneton said.
Unitaid, however, is including drugs such as ivermectin in its funded trials to fill in the gap in evidence.
“We need to finish the job, because I think that we have seen that people, for whatever good reason, I suspect, want to use drugs without evidence [of benefits]. That’s the situation. And I think it’s quite important to find out,” he said.
He’s hoping for better outcomes for new antivirals in development, suchmolnupiravir, which is being developed by Ridgeback Biotherapeutics and Merck & Co. and is advancing to Phase 3 trials for outpatient use, along withearly-stage antiviralsbeing developed byPfizer. He also hopes the second generation of mAbs, short for monoclonal antibodies, would be efficacious against the new COVID-19 variants and would be easier to administer.
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So there he openly admits that he's biased against repurposed drugs and touts new antivirals instead. And that's chief of Unitaid, which was the sponsor of the Andrew Hill's IVM meta-analysis and allegedly rewrote his conclusions. Due to what scientific reason would he say there's no opportunity with old drugs, but there's opportunity with new ones? I can't think of any. By showing this bias he casts doubt on good faith of their IVM meta-analysis, and the trials they fund on e.g. ivermectin - he makes it sound as if they only fund them in order to once and for all prove that these old drugs don't work, because otherwise people will not stop using them.
[-] TehCaster | 5 points | Apr 23 2021 00:15:15
Ok, you've got to be kidding me. There's this:
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“I think that there is a need ... not just to look [at] old drugs, but to double down [on] the effort in terms of screening of potential new drugs,” he added.
Clinical trials of other repurposed drugs, such as hydroxychloroquine and lopinavir/ritonavir, have shown no significant benefits for hospitalized COVID-19 patients. The World Health Organization has also not recommended the use of remdesivir for hospitalized patients based on data from its Solidarity Trials and other large-scale randomized trials that show no evidence the drug improves COVID-19 patients’ outcomes, including survival.
“People at the beginning thought that it was possible to repurpose drugs, so from hydroxychloroquine, to ivermectin, to colchicine, to remdesivir. A long list. But … I think that we can say that we don't see a real opportunity with old drugs … except dexamethasone,” Duneton said.
Unitaid, however, is including drugs such as ivermectin in its funded trials to fill in the gap in evidence.
“We need to finish the job, because I think that we have seen that people, for whatever good reason, I suspect, want to use drugs without evidence [of benefits]. That’s the situation. And I think it’s quite important to find out,” he said.
He’s hoping for better outcomes for new antivirals in development, such molnupiravir, which is being developed by Ridgeback Biotherapeutics and Merck & Co. and is advancing to Phase 3 trials for outpatient use, along with early-stage antivirals being developed by Pfizer. He also hopes the second generation of mAbs, short for monoclonal antibodies, would be efficacious against the new COVID-19 variants and would be easier to administer.
===========
So there he openly admits that he's biased against repurposed drugs and touts new antivirals instead. And that's chief of Unitaid, which was the sponsor of the Andrew Hill's IVM meta-analysis and allegedly rewrote his conclusions. Due to what scientific reason would he say there's no opportunity with old drugs, but there's opportunity with new ones? I can't think of any. By showing this bias he casts doubt on good faith of their IVM meta-analysis, and the trials they fund on e.g. ivermectin - he makes it sound as if they only fund them in order to once and for all prove that these old drugs don't work, because otherwise people will not stop using them.
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