REVIEW - Remdesivir May Be Life-Saving For COVID-19 Patients, Yet Toxic For US-EU Relations

BRUSSELS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 03rd July, 2020) Remdesivir, an antiviral drug produced by the California-based Gilead Sciences biopharmaceutical company, has become the first treatment for COVID-19 to receive the backing of the European Medicines Agency and at the same time the bone of contention between the European Union and the United States after the latter allegedly bought up the global supply of the drug.

Stefan de Keersmaecker, the spokesman for the European Commission, said earlier on Thursday that the EU was negotiating with the Gilead Sciences the possibility of providing the bloc with a sufficient number of doses of the drug amid reports that the US intends to stockpile the doses.

Media reported earlier this week that the United States had purchased nearly all reserves of Remdesivir for the next three months from the biopharmaceutical firm, thus, significantly limiting access to the drug for the European countries. While the first 140,000 doses of the drug were sold worldwide, in late June, Washington purchased about 500,000 doses, which is about 90 percent of the drug's three-month supply.

Meanwhile, Daniel O'Day, the CEO of Gilead Sciences, assured in his open letter published on Monday that the Remdesivir drug would be affordable and available in all countries.

"To ensure broad and equitable access at a time of urgent global need, we have set a price for governments of developed countries of 390 US$ per vial... The 5-day treatment course using 6 vials of Remdesivir, equates to 2,340 US$ per patient. Part of the intent behind our decision was to remove the need for the country by country negotiations on price," the letter read.

However, when contacted by a Sputnik correspondent, the Gilead firm's press service refused to comment neither on the supply priority nor on its global lobbying policy. Yet, it confirmed that developing countries such as India or Egypt would be offered Remdesivir at a reduced price until a vaccine was made available.

Washington's announcement of acquiring 92 percent of all production of Remdesivir has raised fears of a shortage of the drug in the rest of the world, and the European media started to slam the US attitude as unacceptable.

Many EU news outlets referred to the French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi, whose president has said that the US government would get priority for a new vaccine in development because it had invested in its research.

However, in the past few days, several European countries, including Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom, said they had enough Remdesivir in stock to treat all patients.

"The [German] Federal government secured early stocks of Remdesivir. Right now there are enough reserves to use on patients in hospitals for the coming months," the spokesperson for the German Health Ministry told Sputnik.

In addition, the Gilead laboratory has granted free licenses to nine manufacturers of generic drugs in India, Pakistan and Egypt.

In the meantime, according to Jean Macq, a professor of Public Health at the Institute for Health and Society Research of the UCLouvain university in Belgium, the novel coronavirus pandemic led to the disappearance of multilateral cooperation.

"The COVID-19 pandemic clearly highlights the return to a national approach to health and the disappearance of multilateral collaboration. WHO [the World Health Organization] is having great difficulty in making its voice heard, despite good management of the pandemic, after some hesitation at the start," Macq, who also works at the WHO, told Sputnik.

According to the professor, the controversy over Remdesivir shows that in today's world every man is for himself.

"This can be explained by the urgency at the heart of Europe but also by the evolution of geopolitics between the US, China, Russia and the EU. We have seen that the European Union has not been able to respond quickly to the spread of the epidemic and that even today, for vaccine orders, member countries congregate in small groups, without thinking of a group order which would be carried out by the European Commission," Macq noted.

He added that when the COVID-19 vaccines would be presented to the world, there would be "another big tussle between developed countries. The quarrel will start again about priorities."

REMDESIVIR NOT PANACEA, PANDEMIC ON THE RISE

According to the WHO, the coronavirus pandemic is on the rise in several parts of the world. The epidemiological situation has somewhat stabilized in Europe but is still deteriorating in the United States and in Latin America. Several African and Asian countries have also seen the epidemic flare-up.

According to preliminary findings, the use of Remdesivir alone for COVID-19 patients is not sufficient.

"Remdesivir is one of the few drugs on the shelf available to slightly improve the situation in hospitals, but I am very worried now about deconfinement and the re-opening of borders within Europe and with third countries ... Of course, the US or Brazil flights are still not allowed in, but Europeans will travel because summer is there and holidays are sacred. I understand the positive decision for countries that live off tourism, but it could mean many new small clusters will appear when the crisscrossing diminishes in the fall," virologist Marc Van Ranst of KU Leuven University in Belgium, told Sputnik.

The COVID-19 outbreak was declared a pandemic by the WHO in early spring. To date, more than 10.7 million people have been infected with the coronavirus worldwide and over 517,000 of them have died.