AbbVie
AbbVie said it will donate more than
$1 million worth of its drug, Aluvia, to China to help combat the outbreak.
Aluvia is designed to treat HIV, but China's National Health Commission has
said that it is a possible treatment for the symptoms of the coronavirus. It
works by blocking an enzyme that the coronavirus needs to reproduce, and it previously
has been used to treat SARS and MERS, other types of coronaviruses.
Gilead Sciences
Chinese officials have
been testing Gilead’s unapproved
drug, remdesivir, to treat coronavirus patients. Remdesivir is an antiviral
drug designed to treat infectious diseases such as Ebola and SARS. The National
Institutes of Health started a clinical trial of
remdesivir to treat COVID-19 on Feb. 25.