Tag: Roche

Categories
Health

David Roche on China Covid outbreak hitting progress, markets

David Roche on China Covid outbreak hitting growth, markets

Medical personnel work on the sixth round of covid-19 test since late July in Nanjing in east China’s Jiangsu province on Sunday, August 08, 2021.

Feature China | Barcroft Media | Getty Images

China has tightened Covid-19 measures to combat an uptick in daily cases — a move that could hold back the country’s economic growth and hit its stock markets, said veteran strategist David Roche.

Investor sentiment toward Chinese stocks has been dampened by Beijing’s regulatory crackdown on sectors including technology and after-school tutoring.

“Markets have got into the mode of thinking Covid is very … bad, but economic recovery (is) taking away lockdowns, removing social restrictions — that’s kind of the world recipe at the moment,” Roche, president and global strategist at Independent Strategy, told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” on Tuesday.

“Well it’s very much not the world recipe in China for good reasons, and therefore markets have to come to terms with the fact that there are economic costs not only within China, but globally as a result of this,” he added.

I think China is in the process of exiting its big recovery story from Covid …

David Roche

president and global strategist, Independent Strategy

The country’s National Health Commission reported 143 new Covid cases in mainland China on Monday — the highest number of daily infections since January, according to Reuters. Chinese state media attributed the latest resurgence in infections to the highly transmissible delta variant.

Chinese authorities last week ordered mass testing in Wuhan city — where the coronavirus was first detected — and imposed widespread movement restrictions in major cities including Beijing.

Some economists have raised concerns about China’s “zero tolerance” approach to Covid, which refers to the country’s aggressive clampdown on any flare-ups in Covid cases. The approach, which includes strict lockdowns and mass testing, helped China keep previous outbreaks under control before the latest resurgence.

Read more about China from CNBC Pro

But the delta variant is more contagious and could be more difficult to contain — and that could hurt economic recovery in China, economists have warned.

“If lockdowns and vaccination progress do not allow local economies to reopen by mid-August or early September we will need to revisit our 8.8% 2021 GDP forecast,” economists from Australian bank ANZ wrote in a Tuesday report.

China effect on the global economy

Any disruptions in the Chinese economy could affect global economic growth, said Roche.

The strategist explained that broader lockdowns across China could interrupt global supply chains – much of which are located in the country.

That could hit international trade, increase the costs of some goods, and raise inflation expectations around the world, he added.

Roche expects China’s year-on-year growth in the third quarter to slow to between 2% and 3% from the second quarter’s 7.9% expansion.

Over the longer term, China’s economic growth will settle at around 5% to 6%, according to Roche.

“I think China is in the process of exiting its big recovery story from Covid, which of course is ahead of the world … and is now converging with a long-term growth trajectory which is much, much lower than what people became used to in China,” he said.

Categories
Health

Roche arthritis drug reduces loss of life in hospitalized sufferers with extreme Covid, Oxford researchers say

Roche arthritis drug reduces death in hospitalized patients with severe Covid, Oxford researchers say

A pharmacist shows a box of tocilizumab, which is used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, in the pharmacy of Cambrai Hospital in France on April 28, 2020.

Pascal Rossignol | Reuters

A drug used to treat people with rheumatoid arthritis appears to reduce the risk of death in hospitalized patients with severe Covid-19, especially when combined with the steroid dexamethasone, Oxford University researchers said Thursday.

Oxford researchers found that the drug tocilizumab, an intravenous drug of A department of the Swiss drug manufacturer Roche also shortened the length of stay for patients in hospitals and reduced the need for a ventilator. The study was part of the recovery study, which has tested a number of potential treatments for Covid-19 since March.

“Previous studies of tocilizumab had shown mixed results and it was unclear which patients might benefit from the treatment,” said Peter Horby, professor at Oxford University and co-investigator for the recovery study, in a statement. “We now know that tocilizumab benefits apply to all COVID patients with low oxygen levels and significant inflammation.”

A total of 2,022 patients were randomly selected to receive tocilizumab, sold under the brand name Actemra, by intravenous infusion and compared to 2,094 patients who were randomly selected to receive standard care alone. The researchers said 82% of patients were also taking a steroid like dexamethasone, another drug that was found to reduce deaths in the sickest Covid-19 patients.

Researchers said 596 patients in the tocilizumab group died within 28 days, compared with 694 patients in the standard care group. That means that for every 25 patients treated with tocilizumab, “an extra life would be saved,” said Oxford researchers.

The drug increased the chances of being discharged from 47% to 54% within 28 days, the researchers said. The benefits have been seen in all patients, including those who need mechanical ventilators in an intensive care unit, they added. In patients who were not given a ventilator prior to the start of the study, tocilizumab reduced the chance of getting invasive mechanical ventilation or death from 38% to 33%, the researchers said.

The researchers said that using tocilizumab in combination with dexamethasone reduced mortality by about a third in patients who require oxygen and by almost half in patients who require a ventilator.

The results of the Oxford study have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Public health officials and infectious disease experts say world leaders will need a range of drugs and vaccines to end the pandemic that, according to Johns, will infect more than 107.4 million people in just over a year and has killed at least 2.3 million people at Hopkins University.

In the US, the Food and Drug Administration has approved Gilead Sciences’ antiviral drug Remdesivir for the treatment of Covid-19 patients who are 12 years or older and require hospitalization.

The FDA has approved the use of two monoclonal antibody treatments as well as two vaccines – from Pfizer and Moderna. A third vaccine from Johnson & Johnson is expected to receive FDA approval as early as this month.

The Covid-19 Therapy Randomized Evaluation, or Recovery Study, was launched in March by researchers at Oxford University to find treatments for Covid-19. The study previously showed that hydroxychloroquine, lopinavir ritonavir, azithromycin, and convalescent plasma had no benefits for patients hospitalized with Covid-19.

The study is currently investigating aspirin, the anti-inflammatory drugs baricitinib and colchicine, and Regeneron’s antibody cocktail.