Coronavirus Update: FDA Gives Gilead’s Coronavirus Drug Approval For Emergency Use

FOSTER CITY (CBS SF/AP) — Foster City-based Gilead Sciences’ experimental drug — remdesivir — has been granted FDA approval for emergency use to help coronavirus patients make quicker recovery from infections.

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.

The study of 1,063 patients is the largest and most strict test of the drug and included a comparison group that received just usual care so remdesivir’s effects could be rigorously evaluated.