Remdesivir Not Working for Covid-19? Dissecting the WHO Solidarity Trial
[updated 30 Oct] A few researchers have previously doubted remdesivir efficacy against Covid-19; they are more right now.
Gilead Sciences, a biotech company, developed remdesivir in 2017 to treat Ebola. But it did not work and later repurposed for Covid-19. Remdesivir is very expensive and costs 2–3k USD for a five-day course.
But remdesivir was never approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA has only granted remdesivir with an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA), which is not the same as official approval that requires more stringent requirements.
The EUA permission was based on only one randomized controlled trial (RCT) funded by Gilead Sciences. But, as more RCTs on remdesivir were published, scientists started doubting the drug’s efficacy, which I detailed here. In brief, remdesivir can work, but not as good as Gilead’s RCT shows, and all published RCTs produce results that differ from one another.
