SOM Infectious Diseases Specialists Cautiously Optimistic About Investigational Drug They are Using
Leslie Capo, Director of Information Services
LSU Health New Orleans physicians who have been treating COVID-19 patients on the
front lines for months secured approval of a protocol for Expanded Access use of the
investigational antiviral drug remdesivir in their hospitalized patients with severe
manifestations of the disease.
Dr. Julio Figueroa, Professor of Medicine and Chief of Infectious Diseases at LSU
Health New Orleans School of Medicine, expressed cautious optimism at the results
just announced by Gilead Sciences, Inc. of a clinical trial investigating the drug.
Dr. Figueroa says, “While the results are preliminary, we are encouraged that remdesivir
may be helpful for some of our severely ill patients. We are currently using it under
the FDA's Expanded Access Program, which permits the use of investigational drugs
outside of a clinical trial.”
After the existence of novel coronavirus 19 now called SARS-CoV-2 became known, LSU
Health New Orleans clinicians and scientists began gathering and evaluating the information
emerging about the virus and the disease it causes. That included patient outcomes
as clinicians in places hard hit by the virus tried a number of drugs for a disease
that has no treatment. After careful evaluation of the best information available,
LSU Health New Orleans physicians designed protocols for clinical trials to contribute
to the body of knowledge while also taking the steps leading to approval to use the
medications that seemed to show the greatest promise outside of a clinical trial.
Protocols need Institutional Review Board approval and must meet other requirements
of the FDA Expanded Access Program.
“We continue to work closely with our partner teaching hospitals in this process to
find the most effective treatments for our patients,” Figueroa concludes.