Gilead launches clinical trials of inhaled version of remdesivir to fight coronavirus

American biopharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences has started the clinical trials for the inhaled version of the anti-viral drug remdesivir which is said to be effective against COVID-19. The trials began on July 8, 2020. The intravenous versions of remdesivir has shown fast recovery evidences for the patients who were hospitalized due to COVID-19. The inhaled version of the drug will be tried on a group of 60 healthy volunteers aged between 18 and 45.

The trial will help the company to determine if the inhaled version of the drug is safe and effective in an outpatient setting for the patients who are in a very early stage of infection with the novel coronavirus. Merdad Parsey, the Chief medical Officer at Gilead Sciences said that the trials will be conducted based on the current understanding that it is an upper respiratory tract which is the potential site for the SARSCoV-2 infection early in the disease.

Parsey added that the inhaled version of remdesivir will be delivered directly to the primary site of the infection with the help of a nebulized, inhaled solution that will be easy to administer on the patients who are not hospitalized. This particular trial is one of the most planned ones to test the effectiveness of the new inhaled version of the potential drug of COVID-19. Earlier, the intravenous version of remdesivir drug had showed that the drug had hastened the recovery of the patients who were critical and were hospitalized.

It was in the month of May, when the regulators in the US had granted an emergency use authorization for remdesivir. For now it is the only drug that has been licensed for the treatment of patients who are severely infected with COVID-19. In June, 2020, Gilead Sciences had announced that the price range of remdesivir would range between $2,340 to $3,120 for a single treatment course and will also depend on the insurance of the patient.

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