FOSTER CITY, Calif. - Gilead Sciences, the maker of the COVID-19 treatment remdesivir, said it expects the drug to remain effective against the new COVID-19 omicron variant and will continue to conduct further laboratory testing to confirm.Remdesivir, which is sold as Veklury, is an antiviral drug used to treat hospitalized COVID-19 patients 12 and up.
It was the first COVID-19 treatment to receive FDA approval and recent data from a Phase 3 clinical trial found it to be 87% effective at reducing hospitalizations in high-risk patients who were diagnosed early.In a statement, Gilead said Wednesday that it conducted a genetic analysis of more than 200 available sequences of the omicron variant, including those from South Africa, Asia and.