Sanofi Halts Kevzara Tests for Covid as Drug Fails to Help

Sanofi said the rheumatoid arthritis medicine Kevzara failed to work against the new coronavirus, joining a growing list of treatments that were tried and discarded in the pandemic.

The drug, which stoked hope against Covid-19 because it works on inflammation, didn’t significantly shorten patients’ hospital stays in a study involving 420 people, Sanofi said in a statement Tuesday. Patients were about as likely to develop severe infections such as pneumonia and die on Kevzara as they were on a placebo.