Influential medical group advises against Gilead's remdesivir in COVID critical

Gilead’s remdesivir, now known as Veklury, is perhaps the most successful COVID-19 drug so far. It scored a full FDA nod in October after months of emergency use and brought in $873 million last quarter as the standard of care in hospitalized patients.

But there are questions about how well Veklury works—and now, an influential European medical association says it shouldn't be used in intensive care units.

In the wake of a large World Health Organization study showing no benefit for the medicine in hospitalized patients, remdesivir is “now classified as a drug you should not use routinely in COVID-19 patients” requiring critical care, Jozef Kesecioglu, president of the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine, told Reuters.

The group, along with the U.S. Society of Critical Care Medicine, plans to present the recommendations in an upcoming paper about COVID-19 medicines, Kesecioglu told the news service. In the first version of the paper, back in March, the experts said there wasn’t enough data to recommend the med yet.

Gilead told Reuters in a statement it’s “confident that doctors on the front lines recognize the clinical benefit of Veklury based on robust evidence from multiple randomized, controlled studies.”