Gilead Sciences' remdesivir reduced mortality risk for Covid-19 patients by 62% compared to standard care, according to a new comparative analysis of trial data released by the drugmaker.
The data — which will be presented at the Virtual COVID19 Conference as part of the 23rd International AIDS Conference — is a comparative analysis of the Phase 3 SIMPLE-Severe trial and a real-world retrospective cohort of patients with severe COVID-19.
The drugmaker was quick to clarify that this is "an important finding that requires confirmation in prospective clinical trials."
Separate subgroup analyses from the Phase 3 SIMPLE-Severe trial, including an evaluation of the safety and efficacy of remdesivir across different racial and ethnic patient subgroups treated in the U.S., found that traditionally marginalized racial or ethnic groups treated with remdesivir in the study experienced similar clinical outcomes as the overall patient population in the study.
Remdesivir, an experimental antiviral originally developed to treat Ebola, was granted an emergency use authorization by U.S. regulators in early May. Last month, Gilead was one of the first drugmakers to go public with a pricing plan for the drug, announcing that it will price the potential COVID-19-fighting drug at $2,340 for a five-day treatment — well below the cost of what the drugmaker says would be market price for the drug.
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