Hospital Length of Stay for Patients with Severe COVID-19: Implications for Remdesivir’s Value
Michaela R. Anderson, Peter B. Bach, Matthew R. Baldwin
Abstract
In June 2020, the Gilead Sciences chief executive officer announced that US hospitals would be charged $US3120 for a course of remdesivir for the treatment of coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19), a price roughly 33% higher than that the company plans to charge other high-income countries [ 1 ]. The sole justification offered was that remdesivir would save hospitals $US12,000 per patient by shortening hospital length of stay (LOS) by 4 days. This presumed benefit was extrapolated from the ACTT-1 trial, which found median time to recovery (an approximation of median time to hospital discharge) of 11 days in patients receiving remdesivir versus 15 days in those receiving placebo [ 2 ].
Topics & Concepts
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)2019-20 coronavirus outbreakValue (mathematics)MedicineBetacoronavirusVirologyInternal medicineStatisticsMathematicsOutbreakDiseaseInfectious disease (medical specialty)COVID-19 Clinical Research StudiesSepsis Diagnosis and TreatmentCOVID-19 and healthcare impacts