How Sacramento doctors contributed to FDA approval of COVID-19 drug
A drug to treat patients who contracted the novel coronavirus was approved by the FDA on Thursday. The drug, the antiviral remdesivir, was part of clinical trials in Sacramento and used by doctors in the capital city.
Remdesivir is the first drug in the U.S. to be approved for treating patients with COVID-19.
"It's just like an antibiotic except it's for a virus instead of a bacteria," said Dr. Stuart Cohen, the chief of infectious diseases at UC Davis Medical Center.
"It really has been shown to decrease symptoms and severity of illness and decrease hospitalization length of stay," said Dr. Vanessa Walker of Pulmonary Medicine Associates.
Cohen has been conducting clinical trials on the drug, while Walker has been using remdesivir on her COVID-19 patients in the hospital.
"We were one of the first 50 some people to use this drug in the United States and that's what sort of triggered further studies," Cohen said.
Cohen said their randomized placebo control trial is what demonstrated the shortened duration of illness — and was the backbone of what the FDA used to approve the drug.