The US Food and Drug Administration has granted authorisation to Gilead Sciences for emergency use of its experimental antiviral drug remdesivir to treat patients with Covid-19.
During a meeting in the Oval Office with President Donald Trump, Gilead chief executive Daniel O'Day called the move an important first step and said the company was donating 1.5 million vials of the drug to help patients.
The FDA acted after preliminary results from a government-sponsored study showed that remdesivir shortened the time to recovery by 31%, or about four days on average, for hospitalised Covid-19 patients.
The study of 1,063 patients is the largest and most strict test of the drug and included a control group that received just usual care, so