Gilead Sciences Inc.’s remdesivir, the first medicine cleared for the treatment of COVID-19, mainly benefited healthier patients who weren’t dependent on ventilators or heart-lung bypass machines, according to published results of the study used to get the medicine on the market.
The drug helped patients infected with the novel coronavirus heal faster, allowing them to return home after about 11 days, compared to 15 days for those who were treated with a placebo, according to the report in the New England Journal of Medicine. There were also signs the medicine increased their survival rate — 7.1 percent on patients on remdesivir and 11.9 percent on a placebo died within two weeks. Still, the difference wasn’t statistically significant, meaning it could have stemmed from chance.
Some outside experts welcomed the findings, saying the results showed patients on remdesivir cut their recovery time by 27 percent.