FDA grants emergency approval for remdesivir to treat coronavirus patients
Dr. Barry Zingman, from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, on the 'compelling' test results using remdesivir to treat COVID-19.
On Friday, Gilead Sciences said its experimental coronavirus treatment remdesivir has showed to reduce the risk of death in patients with severe COVID-19 infections.
"In this analysis, remdesivir was associated with an improvement in clinical recovery and a 62 percent reduction in the risk of mortality compared with standard of care – an important finding that requires confirmation in prospective clinical trials," Gilead said in a press release.
“We are working to broaden our understanding of the full utility of remdesivir," Gilead’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Merdad Parsey, said in the statement. "To address the urgency of the continuing pandemic, we are sharing data with the research community as quickly as possible with the goal of providing transparent and timely updates on new developments with remdesivir.
"These data presented at the Virtual COVID19 Conference shed additional light on the use of remdesivir in specific patient populations, including those that may be susceptible to higher rates of COVID-19 infection, as well as others that are particularly vulnerable, including children and pregnant and postpartum women.”
The company announced that the data are being presented at the Virtual COVID19 Conference as part of the 23rd International AIDS Conference.
Remdesivir is currently only approved for SARS-CoV-2 in Europe and Japan, but the FDA allowed emergency use approval of the experimental drug in early May.
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As of Friday morning, more than 12.2 million coronavirus cases have been diagnosed worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University data, more than 3.1 million of which are in the U.S., the most impacted country on the planet.