US buys up global stock of key COVID-19 drug
The US government has bought up almost the entire global supply of the antiviral medication remdesivir until October, prompting concerns that other countries will miss out on accessing one of the two drugs proven to work against COVID-19.
Remdesivir, developed and patented by Gilead Sciences, has been shown to help COVID-19 patients recover faster. It is the only drug licensed by the US and the European Union as a treatment for those with severe coronavirus illnesses, but studies are yet to find conclusive evidence that it improves survival rates.
The US health department announced on Tuesday that President Donald Trump had agreed to purchase 500,000 doses of the drug for American hospitals, representing 100 per cent of Gilead’s July production capacity and 90 per cent of its capacity in August and September.
The cost is about US$3,200 for a six-day treatment. The estimated production cost of remdesivir is US$6 for the same course, The Guardian reported.
Health experts said the US move to ‘hoard’ the drug stock undermines international cooperation against the new coronavirus, given that other countries have also taken part in trials of remdesivir for the Ebola pandemic.
“The trial that gave the result that allowed remdesivir to sell their drug wasn’t just done in the US. There were patients participating through other European countries, in the UK as well, and internationally, Mexico and other places,” epidemiologist Peter Horby told BBC Radio 4.
Horby said the buyout pointed out the need for “a much stronger framework” to ensure fair prices and access to key medicines for people around the world.
Ohid Yaqub, senior science policy lecturer at the University of Sussex, said the US arrangement “so clearly signals an unwillingness to cooperate with other countries and the chilling effect this has on international agreements about intellectual property rights”.
Sydney University’s Associate Professor Alice Motion said measures should be taken to ensure that the same situation does not happen to vaccines.
“A vaccine should be available to people all over the world rather than one country, or a group of countries having preferred access to a medicine,” she told The Guardian.
“Remdesivir is a medicine that helps people to recover faster, but imagine if the same thing happened with a vaccine that emerges. That would be terrible.”