Pfizer will manufacture Gilead's emergency coronavirus drug remdesivir to scale up its supply

Gilead Sciences' potential coronavirus treatment is getting a supply chain boost.

Pfizer has entered a multi-year agreement with Gilead to manufacture its antiviral drug remdesivir, which has been FDA approved for emergency use to fight coronavirus, the pharmaceutical company announced Friday. The partnership is intended to ramp up production of the intravenous drug.

While no drug has been approved for the treatment of coronavirus, remdesivir has been approved for emergency use. A study showed the drug, which was developed as a potential Ebola treatment, significantly reduced the risk of death in severely sick COVID-19 patients. At the beginning of July, the Trump administration bought up all the remdesivir Gilead was set to produce in July, August, and September. Pfizer will start ramping up that production even further through contract manufacturing services at its McPherson, Kansas, facility.

Concerns still remain over the price of remdesivir. At $520 per dose, it could cost a patient $3,000 over a typical coronavirus treatment. State attorneys general have sought to enforce a federal patent law that would force Gilead to increase the supply of the drug and lower its price; the partnership with Pfizer will hopefully provide Gilead the bandwidth to do that.