WASHINGTON - The United States will get less than half of Gilead Sciences Inc's worldwide donation of 1.5 million vials of its Covid-19 medicine over the next six weeks, which is not expected to be enough to treat all the patients who would qualify for it.
"Initial supply of remdesivir is likely to be constrained to an even greater degree than we had previously estimated," RBC analyst Brian Abrahams wrote in a note to clients. He said he had been expecting 80 per cent of Gilead's donation to be distributed in the US. With less than 50,000 going out in the first two shipments, the rollout was also slower than what he was expecting.
Gilead did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Its shares rose as much as 2 per cent on Monday and have climbed more than 20 per cent this year. In New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio said the amount of the drug shipped to his city was about 10 per cent of what it needs.