Antiviral drug remdesivir can help keep at-risk unvaccinated people out of hospitals, researchers say
A clinical trial has found that antiviral drug remdesivir reduces serious outcomes and hospitalization in unvaccinated high-risk COVID-19 patients, if administered in the early stages of their infection.
The study’s results, published on Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that a three-day course of remdesivir cut hospitalization rates for COVID-19 or death by 87 percent. It expanded on the results from a study that Gilead disclosed in a press release in September.
A total of 562 patients took part in the study over an eight-month period.The double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial was meant to evaluate the efficacy and safety of a three-day course of remdesivir in high-risk, non-hospitalized patients with COVID-19.
The study found that COVID-19–related hospitalizations or death from any cause occurred in two patients (0.7 percent) in the remdesivir group and in 15 (5.3 percent) in the placebo group.
Gilead’s sells remdesivir under the brand name Veklury.
“In the campaign toward ending the Covid-19 pandemic, these data add yet another option to the armamentarium for the treatment of vulnerable patients who are at high risk for progression to severe Covid-19,” the study authors wrote.
“If you are going to be a skydiver and jump out of your own plane, it’s best to pack a primary chute as well as a secondary chute,” the study’s principal investigator, Robert L. Gottlieb, the therapeutic lead for COVID-19 research at Baylor Scott & White Health, a medical system in Dallas, told The Washington Post.
“Vaccines are a primary chute,” Gottlieb added, while therapies such as remdesivir “are the secondary chute.”
Emily Heil and Shyam Kottilil, infectious disease specialists at the University of Maryland, said in an editorial published simultaneously in the New England Journal that the primary challenge for implementing outpatient remdesivir treatment is “the pragmatic difficulty of administering a three-day course of an intravenous agent.”
“Agents that could be administered orally would be vastly easier to implement in the outpatient setting,” they added.
Kottilil also noted the findings do not establish how well remdesivir would work early on in coronavirus patients who are vaccinated and have received boosters but experience breakthrough infections, according to the Post.
Remdesivir first gained notoriety in 2020 when former President Trump took it after he contracted COVID-19.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted full approval to the antiviral drug for treating COVID-19 in October last year.
The FDA initially granted emergency use authorization for remdesivir in May, which allowed doctors and hospitals to use the drug to treat hospitalized patients. However, it isn’t currently approved for people with less-severe cases who are recovering at home.
The study results were published on Wednesday, the same day the FDA authorized a new COVID-19 treatment from Pfizer, the first pill to treat the virus to become available. A second pill from Merck was authorized by the FDA on Thursday. Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
