Coronavirus hopes were today raised after the anti-viral remdesivir was found to help critically-ill patients recover within a week.

University of Chicago Medicine recruited 125 people with COVID-19 as part of global clinical trials. Of those people, 113 had severe disease.

All the patients were treated with daily infusions of remdesivir, an experimental drug first touted to treat Ebola which has been in the making for ten years.

Most of the patients have been discharged after their symptoms eased over a week, and only two patients have died.

The manufacturer - pharmaceutical giant Gilead Sciences - saw its shares surge by 16 per cent in after hours trading on Thursday as American stock markets rallied overnight in response to the encouraging trial results.

There are currently no approved treatments for COVID-19, the highly contagious respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus that has infected over two million people worldwide.

Hopes have been pinned on remdesivir, but experts have urged cautious optimism over early findings.

Remdesivir anti-viral trial reports 'rapid recoveries' for severe hospitalised coronavirus patients, with nearly all discharged within a week. Pictured: A vial of the investigational drug remdesivir is visually inspected at a Gilead manufacturing site in the United State

The University of Chicago is one of 152 locations participating in Gilead's phase three clinical trial involving severe COVID-19 patients. Pictured, headquarters in Foster City, California

Remdesivir is only an experimental drug, and was initially hoped to help fight Ebola. But it faltered in comparison to others drugs.

It has been thrust into the limelight once more after the World Health Organization listed it as 'the most promising candidate' for a COVID-19 therapy in January.

The medicine has been shown to stop other similar coronaviruses, including MERS, in tests on animals.

And the first COVID-19 patient diagnosed in the US reportedly improved overnight after doctors gave the 35-year-old remdesivir as a last-ditch attempt to treat him.

Scientists say remdesivir - which is also being trialled in scores of British hospitals - could have a 'profound impact' on the global pandemic.

The University of Chicago is one of 152 locations participating in Gilead's phase three clinical trial involving severe COVID-19 patients, with other locations in the UK.

It's a 'single arm' study meaning it does not measure the drug against a matched group of patients treated with a placebo.

Remdesivir has been thrust into the limelight once more after the World Health Organization listed it as 'the most promising candidate' for a COVID-19 therapy in January. Pictured is a mock-up of a pill version, as it is currently only an experimental drug

The antiviral medication led to 'rapid recoveries in fever and respiratory symptoms', with 'nearly all patients discharged in less than a week'. Picutred: An ampule of remdesivir during a news conference at the University Hospital Eppendorf in Hamburg, Germany, April 8

UChicago Medicine recruited 125 people with COVID-19 into Gilead’s two Phase 3 clinical trials, according to medical news website STAT.

Of those people, 113 had severe disease. All the patients were been treated with daily infusions of remdesivir.

WHAT IS REMDESIVIR? Remdesivir was developed around 10 years ago with the intention of it destroying the Ebola virus. It was pushed aside, however, when other, better candidates emerged. It's made by California-based pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences, the firm behind the life-changing HIV-preventing pill Truvada, or PrEP. Because it is only an experimental drug, it doesn't have a marketed name. Lab tests of remdesivir have shown promise against coronaviruses - but human trials are still in their early days. Doctors in the US have tried it on patients and it managed to speed up the recovery of the first person to be treated for the virus there. The a 35-year-old man in Washington state, close to Seattle – whose infection was announced on January 20 – recovered after being given the drug. A Californian woman who doctors 'thought was going to pass away' also recovered in the US after being given the drug. Four American passengers on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship treated with the drug in Japan also recovered. Officials in Liguria – a coastal region of Italy – also announced an infected man in his 70s had recovered and could go home after 12 days in hospital. It is not prescribed on the NHS because it hasn't been approved. Hundreds of patients - including some in the UK - taking part in a European mega-trial will get chance to take the drug to prove if it can fight the coronavirus. The drug is also being trialled on coronavirus patients in China and at the University of Nebraska. Scientists are full of hope because the drug is proven to be safe in humans. But its side effects are still not well understood. Professor Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, hailed remdesivir as 'one of the most promising antivirals' being investigated. While Dr Alfredo Garzino-Demo, of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, said evidence shows it has the ability to treat COVID-19 patients. Advertisement

The antiviral medication led to 'rapid recoveries in fever and respiratory symptoms', with 'nearly all patients discharged in less than a week'.

Most of them have now been discharged, despite the large majority being severly sick to start with, and two patients died.

The results were revealed by Kathleen Mullane, the infectious disease specialist overseeing the remdesivir studies for the hospital, in a video conference, of which STAT obtained a copy.

The 'anecdotal data ... looks promising on the surface and continues to support some potential for the drug to be active in certain COVID-19 patients,' RBC Capital Markets analyst Brian Abrahams said in a research note.

'Nonetheless, there are major limitations to contextualizing and interpreting this data.'

Interest in Gilead's drug amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has been high.

The New England Journal of Medicine last week published an analysis showing that two-thirds of a small group of severely ill COVID-19 patients saw their condition improve after treatment with remdesivir.

The paper's author called the findings 'hopeful,' but cautioned it is difficult to interpret the results since they do not include comparison to a control group.

The patient numbers were small, the details being disclosed were limited, and the follow-up time was relatively short.

Gilead, in an emailed statement, said 'the totality of the data need to be analyzed in order to draw any conclusions from the trial'.

UChicago Medicine, also in an email, said 'partial data from an ongoing clinical trial is by definition incomplete and should never be used to draw conclusions'.

The university said information from an internal forum for research colleagues concerning work in progress was released without authorization.

Gilead expects results from its Phase 3 study in patients with severe COVID-19 at the end of this month, and additional data from other studies to become available in May.

The company's severe COVID-19 study includes 2,400 participants from 152 different clinical trial sites all over the world.

British patients will also be enrolled, with 15 NHS trusts in London, Liverpool, Sheffield, Glasgow and Plymouth signed up.

Another Gilead trial of patients with moderate COVID-19 symptoms has 169 study locations.

REMDESIVIR PREVENTS CORONAVIRUS MERS IN MONKEYS Remdesivir was recently shown to prevent disease and reduce the severity of symptoms in monkeys infected with MERS, an infection closely related to SARS-CoV-2. The results, reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in February, raised hope that it could be effective against the new coronavirus virus. 'It wasn't successful in Ebola, but there is some indication that it might be successful in the coronaviruses,' Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute on Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), said in a recent interview. NIAID scientists tested remdesivir in monkeys 24 hours prior to infection with MERS and in other monkeys 12 hours after infection - the time frame in monkeys when the virus is most active. They were compared with untreated monkeys in a control group. After six days, all of the untreated animals got sick. In the monkeys treated prior to infection, the drug appeared to prevent disease. Animals in this group showed no sign of infection, had significantly lower levels of virus in their lungs and no lung damage. Those treated after infection also fared better than the control group. They had less severe disease, their lungs had lower levels of virus and they had less severe lung damage, researchers found. Many drugs that succeed in monkeys fail in humans. Nevertheless, the researchers said their findings bolster hopes for the ongoing studies in China and for compassionate use of the drug in severely ill patients. Advertisement

Hilary Hutton-Squire, vice president and general manager at Gilead Sciences UK and Ireland, said Gilead started research into remdesivir more than a decade ago.

In animal tests, remdesivir has shown to be 'quite effective at preventing infection' and reducing severity of illness and damage to the lungs caused by COVID-19.

That's according to Dr Daniel Kuritzkes, chief of infectious diseases at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, where research on remdesivir is taking place.

Dr Kuritzkes said: 'It interferes with the enzyme that reproduces the genetic material of the virus.'

Previously researchers at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, showed in test tube and animal studies that the drug can inhibit the coronaviruses that cause SARS and MERS.

And it's been granted a spot in the World Health Organization's large global trial, called SOLIDARITY, of four drugs.

The US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease in February began an 800-patient trial that randomly assigns patients to treatment with either remdesivir or a placebo. Those results are not expected until after Gilead's trial reads out.

Remdesivir has been provided to several hundred severely ill COVID-19 patients in the US, Europe and Japan under 'compassionate use' provisions.

For example, a young man in Snohomish county in Washington, the first COVID-19 patient in the US, was given remdesivir when his condition worsened.

He improved the next day, according to a case report in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). As of January 30, he had a mild cough.

But the 'compassionate use' program is reportedly being halted due to an unmanageable number of requests, it was revealed on March 22.

The Dow Jones was up 3.08 per cent as of 4am ET

The Nasdaq was up 1.79 per cent as of 4.45am

The S&P was up 2.50 per cent as of 4.45am

President Donald Trump speaks about the coronavirus in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House. Trump said the country was 'in the process of winning' the war against the coronavirus

BRITISH PATIENTS TO GET REMDESIVIR British coronavirus patients are set to get the promising Ebola drug remdesivir as part of a trial amid the escalating crisis in the UK. Remdesivir has been fast-tracked into trials so doctors in hospitals across England and Scotland can administer it for critically ill COVID-19 patients. Manufactured by pharmaceutical giant Gilead, remdesivir was initially hoped to help fight. But it faltered in comparison to others drugs. Gilead has initiated two phase 3 randomised studies to evaluate the safety and efficacy of remdesivir in patients with moderate to severe Covid-19. It will be administered via IV. The trial will involve thousands of people across 15 NHS trusts in London, Liverpool, Sheffield, Glasgow and Plymouth and more. Critically, a clinical trial of this size will highlight the true efficacy of remdesivir and any potential side effects. Advertisement

Shares of Gilead, which closed at $76.54 in regular trading, were up 16 per cent at $89.10 after hours.

Blue-chip futures indexes saw big upward spikes following a flurry of positive signals, setting the stage for a decent day of trading today.

The Dow Jones was up 2.96 per cent, the S&P was up 2.76 per cent and Nasdaq was up 1.97 per cent as of 4.30am ET.

And Boeing, which floats shares on the Dow, helped drag up the index after it rose 8 per cent overnight after announcing intentions to resume airplane production at its Washington State plant.

But the rises made by the airline were on half that of Gilead, which benefited from a media publications dispatch from the trial laboratory.

FTSE 100 has also kicked in again, up 193 points, and the Europe-wide Stoxx 600 index gained 2.9 per cent.

London’s index of heavyweight shares was up 3.4 per cent at 5,822, just a dozen or so points below its high point of the day.

Investor confidence was also buoyed by Donald Trump unveiling the White House's guidance to state governors for easing restrictions and restarting the economy.

At the daily evening press briefing, the President outlined his plan 'to preserve the health of our citizens we must also preserve the health and functioning of our economy'.

Although conceding control of when the lockdown is lifted to individual state governors, he unveiled a three-phase guideline.

In phase one, schools and organized youth activities are to remain closed, but large venues, including sit-down dining, movie theaters, places of worship and sporting venues can reopen under social distancing protocols.

Businesses are also encouraged to allow workers to work from home where possible.

In phase two, telework is encouraged, but where workers return to the office, it's suggested common areas are closed.

In this phase, non-essential travel can also resume, bars can reopen and gyms will be allowed to operate.

In phase three, schools and youth activities can reopen, visits to senior care facilities and hospitals can resume. Worksites can also resume unrestricted staffing of worksites.