Gilead's failure to come out with a cure for Coronavirus has been a disappointment for the markets which have shown some resilience in April after a tumultuous March, Zee Business Managing Editor Anil Singhvi says. The markets had performed relatively better in April after reports said that Gilead may come out with a cure for Covid-19 disease, Singhvi explained.

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The factors that have arrested the market fall may not have disappeared till now but have diminished certainly, he added.

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Both US and Indian markets have risen on hope that the worst from Corona pandemic is behind us and a cure could soon come, Singhvi says. He added that Nifty has gained by 2000 points since the fall in March. The markets took solace from US President Donald Trump's announcement that US was seeing flattening of the curve and it could keep the death levels within 60000, he further says. 

In the last two weeks, markets have taken some comfort from these two news, Singhvi says. 

Zee Business has been maintaining that any material impact on the market would be visible if coronavirus is contained. It has been educating people on the various market scenarios and what to do amid high volatility since February month.

Now, as per the new revelations, Singhvi sees the situation aggravating as deaths in US have crossed 50000 and it was unlikely that these could be kept under 60000, considering the fact that numbers were rising by the day.

And Gilead not coming out with a cure is another big disappointment that would affect sentiments in near term, he says.

There is a still a silver lining in the form of human trials of vaccine likely to be done by Oxford University scientists in UK, Singhvi says. If success of the vaccine is announced, it would be useful, he adds. It is still to be seen when the trials begin and how effective these would be, but on the sentiments front, it would be good news, he further says.

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Gilead Sciences today issued the following statement from Merdad Parsey, MD, PhD, Chief Medical Officer, Gilead Sciences:

“Today, information from the first clinical study evaluating the investigational antiviral remdesivir in patients with severe COVID-19 disease in China was prematurely posted on the World Health Organization website. This information has since been removed, as the study investigators did not provide permission for the publication of the results. Furthermore, we believe the post included inappropriate characterizations of the study. The study was terminated early due to low enrollment and, as a result, it was underpowered to enable statistically meaningful conclusions. As such, the study results are inconclusive, though trends in the data suggest a potential benefit for remdesivir, particularly among patients treated early in disease. We understand the available data have been submitted for peer-reviewed publication, which will provide more detailed information from this study in the near future.