In an article this morning in EndPoint's there is an article entitled; NIH corrals biopharma companies, regulators and trial networks to coordinate Covid-19 R&D. https://endpts.com/nih-corrals-biopharma-companies-regulators-and-trial-networks-to-coordinate-covid-19-rd/ That article does not name RVX but posts a link to BioCentury's Resource Center that has complied a list of 161 drug candidates as of April 17th. Apabetalone is on that list about half way through. That is a crowded field. It seems to me that the NIH is preparing to narrow that list to 16 companies which are all listed in the EP article. 

The theory behind the suggestion seems to be solid, keeping in mind that I am not a scientist and have very little knowledge in the medical field. My interpretation is that by combining efforts they can use one control group for each type of drug class being tested. By doing this they could streamline the process for each drug and speed up the entire process. In theory it makes perfect sense to come to a solution sooner than most would doing this on their own. The article also specifically states that any company could continue testing on their own but also suggests that priority would go to the 16 companies listed at the beginning of the article.

This reminds me a lot of the 2 or 3 years prior to the legalization of cannabis in Canada. There were bucket loads of companies in the field and many of them disappeared along the path to eventual sales.

With this many drug candidates listed so far, I think RVX has approached this situation correctly. In asking the world for collaborators to pursue COVID-19 opportunities instead of putting enormous amounts of time, energy and money into it on their own.

tada