Pharmaceutical companies work together to find COVID-19 treatments

A pharmacy benefit manager believes that even though Big Pharma doesn't have a great reputation and is generally distrusted, these companies have stepped up their game in the wake of COVID-19 when it comes to development and research to help patients, Yahoo! Finance reports.

Steve Treff, a tenured veteran of the pharmacy benefit manager industry and president of one of MC-RX's lines of business, said in a press release that companies are working hard when it comes to the coronavirus.

"There are no less than 100 different manufacturers in the game racing to develop a viable vaccine, some already working through or having completed human trials," Treff said in the press release.

Gilead, which developed Remdesivir, an antiviral drug, pledged to provide 1.5 million doses of the drug to COVID-19 patients at no cost, while companies like Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer and AbbVie have donated a total of $125 million to help during the COVID-19 pandemic, the press release stated.

Astra Zenica also partnered with Oxford BioMedica to develop vaccines that may be completed by the end of the year and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services partnered with several pharmaceutical companies to expand manufacturing for medications needed during the pandemic, according to the release.

"While pointing fingers over skyrocketing drug prices has long been a topic of bitter discussion and division in the industry, this is a rare time where manufacturers seem to be working to find a cure rather than continuing to increase prices on critical medications," Treff said in the press release.

The press release notes that pharmaceutical companies are working together despite no overarching agency watching over them to do so and that some are even collaborating by sharing their compound libraries, like Novartis, Pfizer, Merck and Sanofi.

The release also notes that the promising compounds that are identified can then be put through clinical testing because they have the same goal in finding a vaccine or some other kind of treatment for the virus.