EU secures supply of 500,000 Remdesivir courses for coronavirus treatment

The European Commission on Thursday signed a joint procurement framework contract with American pharmaceutical company Gilead for the supply of up to 500,000 treatment courses of Remdesivir, reported Xinhua.

The signature followed a previous contract with Gilead to secure 33,380 treatment courses of Veklury, the brand name for Remdesivir, which have been distributed across the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom since August.

A press release issued by the commission did not mention the price tag, but said the contract was financed from the commission's Emergency Support Instrument (ESI), worth a total of 70 million euros (82.2 million U.S. dollars).

The procurement agreement involves, besides 27 EU countries, Norway, Iceland, the UK, as well as EU's six Western Balkan partners. The participants can now place their orders to procure Veklury directly, according to the release.

"We are always stronger together, and this is European solidarity in action against COVID-19," said Stella Kyriakides, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety.

Veklury is at this stage the only medicine with a conditional marketing authorization in the EU for the treatment of COVID-19 patients needing oxygen supply.

As the world is struggling to control the pandemic, countries across the globe -- among them Germany, China, Russia, the UK and the United States -- are racing to find a vaccine.

According to the website of the World Health Organization, as of Oct. 2, there were 193 COVID-19 candidate vaccines being developed worldwide, and 42 of them were in clinical trials.