ATLANTA — U.S. regulators on Friday allowed emergency use of an experimental drug that appears to help some coronavirus patients recover faster.
Last month, we reported that Emory was testing the drug remdesivir an experimental drug that until now was primarily used to treat Ebola patients.
The Food and Drug Administration acted after preliminary results from a government-sponsored study showed that Gilead Sciences’s remdesivir shortened the time to recovery by 31%, or about four days on average, for hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
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Emory was the lead on the clinical trial and had the most participants in the study that includes more than 1,000 people across the world.
“This is an important development,” said Dr. Aneesh Mehta, Emory University Hospital’s chief of infectious diseases services.
Doctors say the drug works by blocking the virus' ability to make more of itself and build within the body.
Researchers say this treatment is not a vaccine and should not be considered a silver bullet.
“Remdesivir is the first therapeutic, the first medication to show a positive effect with patients with COVID-19,” Mehta said.
No drugs are approved now for treating the coronavirus, and remdesivir will still need formal approval.
The FDA previously gave emergency use authorization to a malaria drug, hydroxychloroquine, after President Donald Trump repeatedly promoted it as a possible treatment for COVID-19.
No large high-quality studies have shown the drug to work for that, however, and it has significant safety concerns.
Gilead has said it would donate its currently available stock of the drug and is ramping up production to make more.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
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