While the world is waiting for a vaccine to prevent, mitigate, or cure COVID-19, the investigational drug remdesivir continues to show promise. The FDA recently gave it Emergency Use authorization to treat COVID-19 patients.
NBC News reported this week that the experimental antiviral drug is being tested in one hundred-eighty hospitals around the globe. Gilead Sciences’ drug remdesivir is currently is being used to treat COVID-19 patients who are hospitalized. (Note that this study did not involve patients who were on respirators or breathing tubes.)
Reports from hospital officials show that remdesivir is indeed saving lives and cutting patients’ recovery time. The FDA’s former commissioner Scott Gottlieb emphasized that the drug decreased a patient’s risk of dying from COVID-19 by almost sixty-two percent.
Further, a late-stage study compared the recovery of remdesivir-treated patients to patients who had received standard of care. The results were 74.4% recovery in fourteen days for the former against 59% recovery in fourteen days for those patients who received standard of care.
About Remdesivir
To date, there are thirty types of nucleoside analogues that have been approved for the treatment of cancers, viruses, fungus, and bacterial infections. Remdesivir is a member of this group.
Nucleoside analogues differ from natural compounds in their chemical structure. They are effective because they resemble molecules that are essential building blocks for RNA and DNA. Remdesivir is an altered form of adenosine, a natural building block that is critical to RNA and DNA.
If a virus absorbs a nucleoside analogue rather than another virus, the chemistry changes, and the virus is prevented from replicating and infecting other cells.
In Short Supply
The supply of remdesivir is currently limited due to challenges related to the production of the drug. One such challenge that must be overcome is the time it takes for production ramp-up.
Although not the ultimate solution, researchers had estimated that patients would need dosing for ten days. It was later discovered that a five-day regimen was sufficient, giving hospitals some flexibility in supply.
Patients Receiving the Most Benefit
Gilead’s most recent report states that patients who were severely ill but under the age of 65 benefited most from treatment with remdesivir. The sickest patients did not see much benefit, however.
These patients did not require the same amount of oxygen as patients who required aggressive treatment to counteract a catastrophic immune reaction known as a cytokine storm.
Researchers are continuing to study this aspect of treatment to determine which patients will benefit the most.
