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The World Health Organisation (WHO) has stated that it has suspended Gilead Sciences’ antiviral drug remdesivir, which was touted as COVID-19 treatment, from its prequalification list—- an official list of medicines used as a benchmark for procurement by developing countries. In an emailed response to news agency Reuters, WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic said,”Yes we have suspended it from the PQ (prequalification list). The suspension is a signal to countries that WHO, in compliance with the treatment guidelines, does not recommend countries procure the drug for COVID Earlier on Friday, the WHO had warned that the antiviral drug remdesivir should not...

China has applied to patent a drug candidate being developed by Gilead Sciences as the government rushes to find the cure for the deadly coronavirus, a move that could raise questions on intellectual property and marketing rights. The state-backed Institute of Virology in Wuhan filed the patent for using remdesivir to fight the novel coronavirus on January 21, according to a statement posted on its website two weeks later on February 4. If approved, the drug will be used to facilitate its potential global market entry, it added. Studies have been conducted outside the human bodies and found that Gilead’s...

Before Democratic fund-raiser Norman Hsu skipped a court hearing and temporarily vanished last week, he typed out a suicide note and sent copies to several acquaintances and charitable organizations, according to people who received it. The one-page note, signed by Mr. Hsu, "very explicitly said he intended to commit suicide," said one of the recipients in an account corroborated by others, including law-enforcement officials. Mr. Hsu also apologized for putting anybody "through inconvenience or trouble," the recipient said. The letter, which began, "To whom it may concern," arrived by FedEx at the addresses of several recipients last Thursday, the day...

Democrat National Committee chairman Howard Dean has asked other California and national fundraisers to pick up the slack of disgraced big-time donor Norman Hsu, who is currently under guard in a Colorado hospital after fleeing the San Francisco Bay Area last week. Hsu was expected to organize at least three major Democrat events on the West Coast in the coming weeks, though at least two of those events are now in doubt. Hsu, who has raised, by conservative estimates, more than $1 million for Democrats in the past election cycle, spent the latter part of 2006 being wooed by every...

At a New York restaurant overlooking Central Park in April 2006, the governor of Pennsylvania sat down to dinner with about a dozen Democratic supporters. The 10-course meal in a private room at Per Se, including dishes like Nova Scotia Lobster Tail "Cuite Sous Vide," cost about $18,000, says a diner who was there. The host, Norman Hsu, was a businessman that the crowd admired but knew little about. In the past few weeks, much more has become known about Mr. Hsu: That he had filed for bankruptcy twice, including a time in 1990 when he said he had no...