Gilead +12% on coronavirus treatment testing

Feb. 3, 2020 6:06 AM ET|About: Gilead Sciences, Inc. (GILD)|By: Yoel Minkoff, SA News Editor 

Shares of Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ:GILD) are up 12% in premarket action after formalizing an agreement with Chinese authorities to study the effectiveness of an experimental Ebola and SARS treatment on patients infected with the coronavirus.

"Gilead is working with health authorities in China to establish a randomized, controlled trial to determine whether remdesivir can safely and effectively be used to treat 2019-nCoV," the company said in a statement. "While there are no antiviral data for remdesivir that show activity against 2019-nCoV at this time, available data in other coronaviruses give us hope."

Trials for the drug will be conducted in Wuhan, the central Chinese city that is ground zero for the current outbreak.