The US President, Donald Trump said he wants the Food and Drug Administration to move “as quickly as they can” in approving Gilead Sciences’ antiviral drug remdesivir a coronavirus treatment.
During a roundtable with business executives at the White House on Wednesday evening, Trump said, “We would like to see very quick approvals, especially with things that work.”
The FDA said earlier that day, that it has been in “sustained and ongoing” discussions with Gilead to make remdesivir available to Covid-19 patients “as quickly as possible, as appropriate.”
White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said data from a coronavirus drug trial testing Gilead’s drug showed “quite good news” and sets a new standard of care for Covid-19 patients. Speaking to reporters from the White House, Fauci said he was told data from the trial showed a “clear-cut positive effect in diminishing time to recover.”
Trump has passed off Gilead’s remdesivir as a plausible treatment for the coronavirus, which has statistically infected 3.1 million people worldwide, as per the data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. A number of studies are testing the drug to see if it’s effective in stopping the coronavirus from replicating, but it is not yet a proven treatment.
Trump called the results from Fauci a “very big thing” and a “building block” in the fight against the virus.
“I want them to go as quickly as they can,” he said. “[Commissioner] Stephen Hahn has been incredible at the FDA. He’s getting things done at record time. There’s never been anything like it. And, yeah, we want everything to be safe.”
Fauci stated on Wednesday that the recovery time for patients taking the drug was 11 days, but without the drug recovery time was 15 days. He said the mortality benefit of remdesivir “has not yet reached statistical significance.”
The results show a survival benefit, with a mortality rate of 8% for the group receiving remdesivir versus 11.6% for the placebo group, based on a statement from the National Institutes of Health.
“This will be the standard of care,” added Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “When you know a drug works, you have to let people in the placebo group know so they can take it.”
“What it has proven is a drug can block this virus,” he said.
