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TUESDAY, Aug. 11, 2020 (HealthDay News) — Gilead Sciences has applied to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for approval for its COVID-19 treatment, remdesivir. The antiviral drug will take the brand name Veklury, the company said.<\/p>\n
“Today’s filing is an important milestone as we continue to partner with the U.S. government and health care authorities around the globe to address the treatment needs of patients with COVID-19,” Merdad Parsey, M.D., Ph.D., Gilead’s chief medical officer, said in a statement.<\/p>\n
At the moment, remdesivir is available on an emergency basis for hospitalized patients with severe COVID-19. If the FDA approves it, however, the drug will gain wider use. Remdesivir is already approved in Europe and Japan. The request for approval comes after the results of a phase 3 trial. The drug works by blocking the virus from copying itself. Trials of the drug showed that it can cut recovery time from COVID-19 by nearly a third.<\/p>\n
“Since the beginning of the pandemic, Gilead has worked with urgency to establish the efficacy and safety profile of Veklury, and we now have a robust data set supporting the evaluation of use of the drug across a range of hospitalized COVID-19 patient populations,” Parsey said.<\/p>\n