Gilead Pauses Access To Experimental COVID-19 Drug Due To 'overwhelming Demand' Covid-19 Drug

Gilead pauses access to experimental COVID-19 drug due to 'overwhelming demand'

A close up of a check equipment intended testing intended the coronavirus, Covid-19 is seen at Newton-Wellesley Hospital within Newton, Massachusetts on March 18, 2020, as the hospital has put up three tents within the parking garage where patients who have been pre-screened can show up intended testing.

Joseph Prezioso | AFP | Getty Images

Gilead Sciences has briefly stopped granting patients access to remdesivir, its test medication against the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19, citing "overwhelming demand," the company said Sunday.

The company said within a statement that it is focused on processing previously approved requests, including that it is developing a new arrangement that it says will allow patients to get the medication within a similar time frame to what it would have taken to do business through the requests it has received.

It will produce exceptions intended pregnant women including children under 18 years of days with confirmed COVID-19 including "severe manifestations" of the disease.

Remdesivir is being studied within five large clinical trials, two of which could study out results within beforehand April. Up until now, Gilead has made it possible intended patients who want the medication to get it through a means called "compassionate use." To date, the company said, it has provided emergency access to several hundred patients within the United States, Europe, including Japan.

The company said within its statement that "enrollment within clinical trials is the primary method to access remdesivir to create critical data that inform the appropriate use of this investigational medicine."

Some severely ill patients, it acknowledges, will be unable to enroll within clinical trials including will not have approved treatment options. For those, it is moving from a "compassionate use" arrangement to expanded access programs. It said the approach will speed up access intended severely ill patients including enable the company to collect data from all patients. These programs are under "rapid development" with regulators worldwide.

Gilead said that within recent weeks there has been "an exponential increase" within requests intended compassionate use because of the spread of the coronavirus within Europe including the U.S. This has "flooded" its treatment access system, which was put up intended very limited access to the remedy including was, it said, "never planned intended use within response to a pandemic."