Remdesivir has been revealed to speed up recovery times for patients with COVID-19 in a significant US-led trial, becoming the first drug with documented benefit against the virus.
Remdesivir is an experimental, broad-spectrum antiviral made by US pharmaceutical Gilead Sciences that was first developed to treat Ebola, a viral hemorrhagic fever.
It showed early promise in a primate study in 2016 and was later rolled out for a major trial in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where it was compared against three other medicines.
That study concluded in 2019 when it was discontinued because it did not boost survival rates as greatly as two monoclonal antibody drugs, which are lab-engineered immune system proteins.
In February, the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) announced it was dusting off remdesivir to investigate against SARS-CoV-2, the pathogen that causes COVID-19 because it had shown promise in animal testing against fellow coronaviruses SARS and MERS.
The NIAID announced the results of its trial involving more than 1,000 people on Wednesday, finding that hospitalized COVID-19 patients with respiratory distress got better quicker than those on a placebo.
Specifically, patients on the drug had a 31 percent faster time to recovery.
“Although the results were clearly positive from a statistically significant standpoint, they were modest,” Anthony Fauci, the scientist who leads the NIAID told NBC News on Thursday.
In other words, while it works, it’s not a miracle cure.
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