Help On The Way?

Promising Early COVID-19 Treatment Will Be Rolled Out This Week: CEO

While remdesivir is still being tested for its effectiveness as a possible coronavirus treatment, it offered hope after previously hyped drugs seemed to go nowhere.

Remdesivir, a tentative treatment for the novel coronavirus, will be rolled out to hospitals in the coming days, the CEO of the company behind it said on Sunday. “We are now firmly focused on getting this medicine to the most urgent patients,” Gilead Sciences chairman and CEO Daniel O’Day told CBS’ Face the Nation. “We intend to get [remdesivir] to patients in the early part of this next week, beginning to work with the government which will determine which cities are most vulnerable and where the patients are that need this medicine,” he said, adding that 1.5 million vials that could treat up to 200,000 patients would be donated to the government.

Last week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted emergency use authorization for the antiviral drug, the “first glimmer of hope” in a potential treatment for the coronavirus, The Daily Beast previously reported. While the drug’s effectiveness was still being tested, it appeared to help patients recover faster in early—emphasis on early—trials backed by the National Institutes of Health.