Gilead to produce ‘several million’ rounds of remdesivir to help treat coronavirus patients in 2021

Gilead Sciences said on Thursday that it can produce “several million” rounds of its antiviral drug remdesivir in 2021 to help patients fight the coronavirus.

The U.S. company also said it expects to produce more than 140,000 rounds of its 10-day treatment regimen by the end of May, and anticipates it can make 1 million rounds by the end of this year.

“Our focus at this time is on both our work with remdesivir and our ongoing commitments to the people who depend on our medicines today,” Gilead chief executive Daniel O’Day said in the company’s first-quarter earnings release.

On Wednesday, Gilead announced preliminary results from its clinical trial on remdesivir, showing at least 50 percent of the patients treated with a five-day dosage of the drug improved. The clinical trial involved 397 patients with severe cases of coronavirus. The severe study is “single-arm,” meaning it did not assess the drug against a control group of patients who didn’t receive the drug.