Because, as I have found from the local level all the way to the national and even world levels, certain people through relationships are the ones designated to make money. The “right” people will make money off of Remdesivir and the “wrong” people would make money off of HCQ. It’s pretty simple.
It sounds like there is lots of money to be made with the new patent drug and zero money to be made with the old, off-patent drug. From the preliminary results, it appears their effectiveness is about the same.
I was skeptical of this theory for quite a while, but sadly have come around to agree with it. So many factors at work here: Big pharma, investors hungry for returns, regulatory capture, Trump derangement, only a few lone voices arguing for the cheap, proven off-patent HCQ, innumerate journalists completely incapable of critical thought on anything that requires technical thinking or analysis.