Gilead's Remdesivir drug shows positive results in coronavirus patients who require extra oxygen

Gilead Sciences Inc.'s remedesivir, the first medicine cleared for the treatment of COVID-19, mainly benefited healthier patients who need extra oxygen but weren't dependent on ventilators or heart-lung bypass machines, according to a report published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Hyderabad:The clinical trial of Gilead Sciences Inc.'s remdesivir, led by a team of investigators, show that the drug offers benefited results to COVID-19 patients who require extra oxygen and weren't dependent on ventilators, US National Institutes of Health (NIH) said on Friday.

The peer-reviewed data was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The investigational drug, Remdesivir which has received emergency authorisation from the US Food and Drug Administration, has shortened the recovery time for COVID-19 patients by four days, allowing them to return home in 11 days, compared to 15 days for those treated with placebo.

Daily recovery status of patients' was tracked through an eight-point ordinal scale ranging from fully recovered to death. On the fifteenth day, when the clinical status of both the patients, one treated with placebo and other with remdesivir were compared, results of the latter were found to be healthier.

The COVID-19 patients treated with the drug are discharged from the hospital with full medical stability, according to the study which began on Feb with 1063 participants in 10 countries.

Researchers noted that the medicine has increased the survival rate - 7.1 % on patients on remdesivir and 11.9% on placebo died within two weeks.

However, they noted that given the high mortality rate despite the use of remdesivir indicates the need to evaluate antivirals with other therapeutic agents to continue to improve clinical outcomes for patients with COVID-19.

On May 8, 2020, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), began a clinical trial evaluating remdesivir in combination with the anti-inflammatory drug baricitnib compared with remdesivir alone.