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Remdesivir, an experimental antiviral drug developed by Gilead Sciences as a treatment for Ebola, has shown clinical benefit in a US clinical trial with 1,063 COVID-19 patients. While hospitalized COVID-19 patients receiving a placebo took an average of 15 days to recover from the disease, patients taking remdesivir recovered in an average of 11 days—a reduction of 31 percent.
“Remdesivir was better than placebo from the perspective of the primary endpoint, time to recovery,” reads a statement posted yesterday (April 29) by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID). “More detailed information about the trial results, including more comprehensive data, will be available in a forthcoming report.”
The study did not conclusively demonstrate that the drug reduces mortality from COVID-19, although the NIAID statement noted that statistically insignificant results from the trial were suggestive of a survival benefit: the group receiving the drug had ...
