U.S. Ships Gilead’s Remdesivir to More States for Hospital Use
U.S. Ships Gilead’s Remdesivir to More States for Hospital Use
(Bloomberg) --
The U.S. is sending Gilead Sciences Inc.’s remdesivir to local agencies in Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan and New Jersey after doctors raised questions about the federal allocation of the drug to treat Covid-19 patients.
State health departments -- rather than the federal government -- will distribute doses to hospitals, the Department of Health and Human Services said Saturday. Illinois and New Jersey each get more than 100 cases, with the other states receiving from 10 to 40 cases. Each case has 40 vials.
After remdesivir won U.S. approval for emergency use, the federal government said it would decide which hospitals got the drug. On Friday, the White House said it will have Deborah Birx, a member of the coronavirus task force, help oversee distribution after questions were raised about the opaque process for getting the therapy to U.S. hospitals.
Gilead is donating about 607,000 vials of the experimental drug over the next six weeks to treat an estimated 78,000 hospitalized Covid-19 patients, the department said. It is part of the 1.5 million vials of remdesivir the company is donating worldwide.
The U.S. will ship 140 cases to Illinois, 110 cases to New Jersey, 40 to Michigan, 30 each to Connecticut and Maryland and 10 to Iowa.
New Jersey received an initial remdesivir allocation earlier this week along with Indiana, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Virginia.
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