Millions of Doses of Remdesivir, Promising Drug in Virus War, Could Be Available By Next Year

By the end of May, Gilead Sciences says, it could produce 140,000 doses of remdesivir -- a drug which has shown promise in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. The company hopes that'll rise to a million rounds of the drug by the end of 2020 and “several million” doses by next year.

CNBC reports that clinical tests of the drug on 397 patients with severe, advanced cases of COVID-19 showed that a five-day dosage cycle led to improvement in at least half.

Daniel O’Day, CEO of Gilead, said on the company’s website: “We are very pleased with these results. They provide valuable information on treatment duration in this severe patient population and show the outcome we had all hoped to see.”

He also noted that the company’s studies show that patients received the same benefit from remdesivir if they took it for five days or 10, meaning that more of the drug could become available more quickly, allowing treatment of more patients.

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