Gilead CEO: Coronavirus drug will be deployed to ‘most urgent’ patients this week

The CEO of Gilead Sciences said that remdesivir, a new drug granted emergency authorization to treat COVID-19, will be sent to the patients most in need early this week. 

“We are now firmly focused on getting this medicine to the most urgent patients around the country here in the United States,” Daniel O’Day said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” 

“We intend to get that to patients in the early part of this next week, beginning to work with the government which will determine which cities are most vulnerable and where the patients are that need this medicine,” he added. 

NEWS: @GileadSciences Daniel O’Day tells @margbrennan that #Remdesivir will be deployed to “most urgent” patients at the beginning of next week following the drug’s emergency use authorization on Friday. $GILD pic.twitter.com/TrLBfMhLjj

— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) May 3, 2020

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced last Friday the drug received an emergency use authorization as treatment for COVID-19 after it showed promising results during a clinical trial. 

The trial found that hospitalized patients with advanced COVID-19 who received remdesivir, an antiviral medicine, recovered in 11 days instead of the 15 days it took patients who were placed on a placebo. 

The drug is still being studied, but the emergency use authorization allows it to be administered by prescription while it is still being studied.