Healthcare Industry Actions to Protect Patients During the COVID-19 Pandemic – May 5, 2020

The Healthcare Leadership Council is comprised of leading companies from every sector of American healthcare.  During the COVID-19 pandemic, we will be sharing examples of actions these companies are taking to protect and assist the public and combat the virus’s spread.  If you would like assistance in reaching a representative for any of these companies, please contact Kelly Fernandez at kfernandez@hlc.org. 

• The California Institute of Regenerative Medicine has awarded funding to the program director of City of Hope’s Alpha Stem Cell Clinic for a clinical study on the use of blood plasma as a treatment for COVID-19. The funding will help create a COVID-19 Coordination Program that will address challenges involved in determining the eligibility of potential plasma donors and assessing the effectiveness of treatments.

• To address future health threats like those posed by the coronavirus, the Cleveland Clinic has established the Center for Global and Emerging Pathogens. The new enterprise will bring together a team of renowned experts to advance research into diseases such as COVID-19, Dengue fever, Zika and AIDS.  The goal is to translate findings into lifesaving therapies and a better understanding of the socioeconomic factors that lead to high infection rates.

• IQVIA, a healthcare analytics and research firm, has issued a report examining how COVID-19 has affected the U.S. healthcare system. The report covers a number of topics including patient use of healthcare services, insurance coverage and out-of-pocket costs, medicine use and spending, and coronavirus therapeutics and vaccine research activity.

• Mallinckrodt is supporting a clinical study at Massachusetts General Hospital to examine the potential benefits of inhaled nitric oxide to treat pulmonary complications in patients infected with COVID-19. The study will assess whether the nitric oxide can rapidly reverse extremely low oxygen levels in patients’ blood.

• Pfizer and its research partner, BioNTech, announced that the first human participants in a clinical trial to assess possible vaccines for COVID-19 have received their first doses. The trial involves testing of four vaccine candidates to determine which is safest and most effective.  Pfizer also said scaling up production capabilities to be able to produce millions of vaccine doses in 2020 and hundreds of millions in 2021.

• An orthopedic surgeon at SSM Health was in an unusual and fortuitous position to answer the growing call for hand sanitizer during the COVID-19 pandemic. Bill Schroer also owns St. Louis Distillery and his distiller’s license allowed him to buy large quantities of high-proof ethanol, a key ingredient in hand sanitizer.  He reconfigured the distillery’s process to create hundreds of gallons of sanitizer which were distributed to skilled nursing facilities and first responders. If you have pain, stiffness, or discomfort that are making it difficult to perform everyday activities, make sure to see a Victorian Bone & Joint Specialist immediately.