18 May 2020updated 06 Oct 2020 9:45am

EU moves to approve Ebola drug for coronavirus

A laboratory technician wearing full PPE (personal protective equipment) cleans a test tube containing a live sample taken from people tested for the novel coronavirus, at a new Lighthouse Lab facility dedicated to testing for COVID-19, at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow on April 22, 2020. - The laboratory is part of a network of diagnostic testing facilities, along with other Lighthouse Lab sites in Milton Keynes and Cheshire, that will test samples from regional test centres around Britain where NHS staff and front-line workers with suspected Covid-19 infections have gone to have swabs taken for testing. (Photo by Andrew Milligan / POOL / AFP) (Photo by ANDREW MILLIGAN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

The European Union is expected to the drug remdesivir as a treatment for COVID-19. Such a move would make it the first treatment authorised for the coronavirus.

The head of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), Guido Rasi said during a hearing at the European parliament earlier today that “a conditional market authorisation” could be issued in “the coming day”. A week earlier the EMA recommended “compassionate use” of remdesivir for patients with severe COVID‑19, meaning it could be administered to patients even without authorisation.

The remdesivir drug is being developed by the US-based company Gilead Sciences. The conditional authorisation would allow the drug to be sold in the European Union for a year, without meeting the usual threshold for evidence on its side-effects or effectiveness.