Analyst: Remdesivir could pull in $7 billion each year by 2022

Although Gilead’s remdesivir has never been fully approved by the FDA to treat any condition, annual sales for the anti-viral could reach $7 billion by 2022. 

So far, remdesivir has only been OK’d by the FDA on an emergency use basis as a treatment for patients with COVID-19. But the drug has been approved in Japan and for emergency use in India and South Korea. And according to new analysis SVB Leerink, government stockpiling of the drug will be a major driver of sales in the coming year.

Gilead has yet to set a price for remdesivir, but the SVB Leerink estimate assumes it will be priced around $5,000 per course.

Although the incoming trial results for remdesivir have only shown modest improvements for patients, it has become the leading antiviral used in the hunt for coronavirus treatments. 

This week, Gilead released new data from a late-stage study of remdesivir on 600 patients. The study showed that moderately ill patients (hospitalized but not on ventilators) who took a five-day course of the drug were more likely to show clinical improvement compared to those who received standard care. Another study published last month in the New England Journal of Medicine found that remdesivir shortened the recovery time for severely ill coronavirus patients from 15 days to 11.