Posted by — Veklury Is First and Only FDA-Approved Treatment for COVID-19 in the United States —
— Veklury Shortened Time to Recovery By Five Days in Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients —
Gilead Sciences, Inc. announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the antiviral drug Veklury® (remdesivir) for the treatment of patients with COVID-19 requiring hospitalization. As an antiviral drug, Veklury works to stop replication of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Previously authorized by the FDA for emergency use to treat COVID-19, Veklury is now the first and only approved COVID-19 treatment in the United States. The drug is now widely available in hospitals across the country, following early investments to rapidly expand manufacturing capacity to increase supply.
In the United States, Veklury is indicated for adults and pediatric patients (12 years of age and older and weighing at least 40 kg) for the treatment of COVID-19 requiring hospitalization. Veklury should only be administered in a hospital or in a healthcare setting capable of providing acute care comparable to inpatient hospital care. Veklury is contraindicated in patients who are allergic to Veklury or any of its components; please see below for additional Important Safety Information for Veklury.
This approval is based on three randomized controlled trials including the recently published, final results of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ (NIAID) double blind, placebo-controlled Phase 3 ACTT-1 trial, which showed that treatment with Veklury resulted in clinically meaningful improvements across multiple outcome assessments compared with placebo in hospitalized patients with COVID-19. Based on the strength of these data, Veklury has become a standard of care for the treatment of COVID-19 in hospitalized patients.
In parallel with the FDA approval of Veklury, the FDA also issued a new Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the use of Veklury to treat hospitalized pediatric patients under 12 years of age weighing at least 3.5 kg or hospitalized pediatric patients weighing 3.5 kg to less than 40 kg with suspected or laboratory confirmed COVID-19 for whom use of an intravenous (IV) agent is clinically appropriate. This authorization is temporary and may be revoked, and does not take the place of the formal submission, review and approval process for the use of Veklury in this patient population. The use of Veklury in pediatric patients under 12 years of age or weighing less than 40 kg has not been approved by FDA, and the safety and efficacy of Veklury for this use has not been established.
About Veklury
Veklury (remdesivir) is a nucleotide analog invented by Gilead, building on more than a decade of the company’s antiviral research. Veklury has broad-spectrum antiviral activity both in vitro and in vivo in animal models against multiple emerging viral pathogens, including Ebola, SARS, Marburg, MERS and SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
Veklury has been approved or authorized for temporary use as a COVID-19 treatment in approximately 50 countries worldwide. In our continuing commitment to develop effective treatments for COVID-19, multiple ongoing international Phase 3 clinical trials are evaluating the safety and efficacy of Veklury for the treatment of COVID-19, in different patient populations, formulations, and in combination with other therapies.
As announced on October 1, 2020, Gilead is now meeting real-time demand for Veklury in the United States and anticipates meeting global demand for Veklury in October, even in the event of potential future surges of COVID-19.
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