Gilead Ramps Up Remdesivir Production as More Trials Emerge

Gilead CEO Daniel O’Day announced that the company is ramping up production of its antiviral remdesivir for COVID-19 and hopes to have 500,000 treatment courses by October, and more than 1 million treatment courses by the end of the year.

O’Day said in an open letter that the company has been scaling up production since January and has produced 1.5 million individual doses of the drug. The doses could potentially supply 140,000 treatment courses, assuming a 10-day course of treatment.

As Gilead works to ramp up production, multiple clinical trials are underway testing the potential COVID-19 treatment.

The National Institutes of Health has expanded its phase 2 clinical trial testing into a phase 3 trial being conducted at 54 study sites across the U.S. and several other countries. Remdesivir is also an arm of the World Health Organization’s multinational SOLIDARITY Trial (DID, March 19).

Meanwhile, the drugmaker has ramped up its own clinical trials of the drug in mild-to-moderate and severe cases of COVID-19. It recently launched two phase 3 clinical trials of the drug in the UK, and is conducting multiple clinical trials around the world, including Asia and France. — Jordan Williams