A Fast-Moving Virus Pits Treating Patients Against Finding a Cure

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Pharmaceutical-research experts are raising concerns that attempts to offer desperate coronavirus patients some form of treatment may hobble crucial studies of which drugs actually work and which ones don’t.

More than 100 off-the-shelf and experimental therapies are being tested either formally or informally for the coronavirus disease, including hydroxychloroquine, the antimalarial touted as a treatment by President Donald Trump, and remdesivir, an experimental drug from biotechnology company Gilead Sciences Inc. There are so many even ...