Gilead Surges After WHO Comments on Virus Drug Testing (4)

Gilead Sciences Inc. shares gained Monday after a senior World Health Organization official said the company’s experimental drug may be the best bet to find a treatment for the new coronavirus spreading around the globe.

Gilead’s compound, remdesivir, has been rushed into a clinical trial in China, where the illness has infected tens of thousands of people. WHO officials have said results could be available within weeks.

Remdesivir is the “one drug right now that we think may have efficacy,” Bruce Aylward, an assistant director-general at the World Health Organization, said at a briefing in Beijing. WHO officials and ...