Stephen Dover, Head of Equities headlines a few medical and scientific efforts to combat virus.
The world’s medical and scientific community and health care, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies are working more closely together than ever as our societies and economies seismically shift to new ways of engaging in life and commerce in response to the COVID-19 virus.
As global investors, we focus on data-driven and boots-on-the-ground research about COVID-19, and possible prevention, treatments and vaccines. Some of the positive steps the healthcare community is taking include:
Below is a short summary of five COVID-19 treatments in newsworthy research studies as of today, supplied by Evan McCulloch and our Franklin Equity Group health care and biotechnology research analysts.
The rapid mobilization by biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies to produce treatments and vaccines for COVID-19 looks impressive. Of the scores of key vaccine programs in various stages of development, as of today, we are most impressed with companies that have quickly advanced vaccine candidates into human clinical trials within months of the identification and sequencing of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
While currently there are no US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved drugs specifically for the prevention and treatment of patients with COVID-19, there are hundreds of known clinical trials that are underway globally1. We’re also watching scores more investigational drugs and agents, including treatments already approved for other indications currently in use in the United States.
However, development takes time, it’s unknown what may be available near term, and today’s reports reveal how quickly research resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic could be obsolete tomorrow.
Of the scores of preventative measures, treatments and vaccines in development, five products highlighted below are newsworthy. We’re encouraged that biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries can continue to innovate in efforts to contain COVID-19’s current pandemic course, and are optimistic that an FDA-approved efficacious treatment can be produced for potentially life-saving treatments.
Source: Franklin Templeton research.
Source: National Institutes of Health, US National Library of Medicine, www.clinicaltrials.gov, as of March 24, 2020.
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