Business Standard

British experts slam US for hoarding nearly entire supply of remdesivir

The US government announced Tuesday that President Donald Trump had struck "an amazing deal" to buy the remdesivir drug for Americans

remdesivir, coronavirus

The Department of Health and Human Services said Trump has secured 500,000 treatments of the drug through September

AP London

Some British experts have slammed the US decision to snap up nearly the entire global supply of remdesivir, the only drug licensed so far to treat COVID-19.

Ohid Yaqub, a senior lecturer at the University of Sussex called it disappointing news in a statement.

It so clearly signals an unwillingness to cooperate with other countries and the chilling effect this has on international agreements about intellectual property rights, Yaqub said.

The U.S. government announced Tuesday that President Donald Trump had struck an amazing deal to buy the remdesivir drug for Americans, made by Gilead.

The Department of Health and Human Services said Trump has secured 500,000 treatments of the drug through September, representing 100 per cent of Gilead's July production capacity and 90 per cent of its capacity in August and September.

 

In earlier stages of the pandemic, the U.S. refused to export pre-ordered masks to other countries, including Canada.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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First Published: Jul 01 2020 | 8:49 PM IST

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