The FDA approved a remdesivir medication called “Veklury” to treat COVID-19 in people 12 years and older (and weighing over 88 lbs.). The medicine is only approved for COVID-19 treatment if it’s administered in a hospital or other acute inpatient care facility.
This is the first medication that has been fully approved for the treatment of COVID-19. Many other medications have been given Emergency Use Authorization for use in patients with COVID-19 but this is the first med to be fully approved for treatment. The drug appears to help some patients recover more quickly but it hasn’t been shown to improve survival chances.
A clinical trial found that it accelerated recovery among patients that had advanced disease. It was a randomized, controlled trial involving 1063 patients. The study found that patients who got remdesivir recovered 31% faster than the people that got the placebo (p<0.001). The median time to recovery was 11 days for patients treated with remdesivir compared with 15 days for the placebo group.
Here’s one of my previous blog posts that walks you through how the FDA processes work when evaluating and approving medications. Here’s where you can read FDA’s press release on the remdesivir approval.
