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Health regulators in the UAE have allowed the emergency use of the anti-viral drug remdesivir for treatment of patients with coronavirus in the country.
The medicine is considered a key drug in the fight against the pandemic, with clinical trials showing that it may help infected patients speed up recovery from COVID-19 infection.
The US-based drug manufacturer Gilead Sciences confirmed on Sunday the regulatory approval of its Veklury (remdesivir) from the UAE Ministry of Health and Prevention.
In a press statement, the company said it has scaled up the manufacturing of remdesivir to increase available supply “as rapidly as possible.” Stocks are expected to come in this month.
“While there is currently limited global supply of remdesivir, the company anticipates new supply of the drug to start to become available in July, with supply continuing to increase through the end of this year and into next year,” the company said.
“Gilead will work closely with the health authorities in UAE to provide guidance on anticipated drug supply based on local incidence and severity of disease,” it added.
Remdesivir has been studied in hospitalised coronavirus patients with a range of disease severity. According to Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the United States, a large study of more than 1,000 patients who received remdesivir treatment showed promising results.
“The data shows that remdesivir has a clear-cut, significant, positive effect in diminishing the time recovery,” Fauci said in late April.
Gilead did not specify how much its remdesivir drug will cost in the UAE, although the manufacturer had earlier said that the drug would be priced at $390 per vial for governments in developed countries and $520 per vial for private insurers.
(Reporting by Cleofe Maceda; editing by Mily Chakrabarty)
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