Thuốc này vẫn đang còn rất nhiều ý kiến trái chiều, ngay tại Mỹ:
Coronavirus Drug and Treatment Tracker - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
Remdesivir, made by Gilead Sciences under the brand Veklury, is the first — and so far only — drug to
gain approval from the F.D.A. for the treatment of Covid-19. The molecule gets inserted into new viral genes, leaving new coronaviruses unable to replicate.
Remdesivir was originally tested as an antiviral against Ebola and Hepatitis C, only to deliver
lackluster results. But once the Covid-19 pandemic emerged, researchers found that it could stop the coronavirus from multiplying in cells. A large clinical trial was then launched, which found that the drug reduced the recovery time of people hospitalized with Covid-19 from
15 to 11 days.
The F.D.A. responded to this data last May by
issuing an emergency authorization for remdesivir’s use in critically ill patients who need supplemental oxygen. In August, they expanded that approval after another study found that patients with less severe forms of Covid-19
seemed to benefit modestly from a five-day treatment course of remdesivir. The revised approval permitted the use of the drug on all patients hospitalized with Covid-19, regardless of how severe their disease is. The move was
criticized by some experts who said the F.D.A. had expanded remdesivir’s use without enough strong evidence to back the change.
When former President Trump developed Covid-19 in October he received
a five-day course of remdesivir. The F.D.A. gave
full approval to the drug soon afterwards, on Oct. 22, for use in patients 12 years and older.
Yet many experts remain skeptical of remdesivir’s benefits. They point out, for example, that there’s
no statistically significant evidence that remdesivir actually prevents deaths from Covid-19. On Nov. 19, the World Health Organization
recommended against using remdesivir. Based on a
global randomized trial, they concluded in February that remdesivir had little to no effect on hospitalized patients with Covid-19.
In the United States, at least, that decision hasn’t slowed the use of the drug.
At a January presentation, Daniel O’Day, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Gilead, said that one in two Americans hospitalized for Covid-19 was receiving remdesivir. The company made $2.8 billion from the drug in 2020 alone. In the United States, a five-day course of remdesivir costs as much as
$3,120.
On April 12, Gilead
announced it would halt its Phase 3 trial of remdesivir in high-risk, non-hospitalized Covid-19 patients. That’s because Gilead doesn’t see a need in developing the multi-day treatment, it said.