Gilead Sciences Inc (GILD)

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Beginning on May 7, the process began to deliver cases of the drug to Connecticut (30 cases), Illinois (140 cases), Iowa (10 cases), Maryland (30 cases), Michigan (40 cases) and New Jersey (110 cases). Each case contains 40 vials of the donated drug.

“State health departments will distribute the doses to appropriate hospitals in their states because state and local health departments have the greatest insight into community-level needs in the COVID-19 response, including appropriate distribution of a treatment in limited supply” the US Department of Health stated.

Candidates for the donated doses must be patients on ventilators or on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation or who require supplemental oxygen due to room-air blood oxygen levels at or below 94%.

In addition to the donated doses, remdesivir also is available in the U.S. through clinical trials.

The National Institutes of Health and Gilead worked together to conduct a randomized controlled clinical trial of the investigational drug in hospitalized patients. Preliminary results suggested that remdesivir was associated with faster recovery, although the data was not sufficient to determine if the drug was associated with lower mortality.

TipRanks data shows that out of the 28 analysts covering Gilead in the past three months, 15 are now sidelined with a Hold rating on the stock, 8 say Buy and 5 say Sell, adding up to a Hold consensus rating. The $79.39 average price target suggests analysts see limited upside potential in the shares in the coming 12 months- given that shares are currently rallying 19% year-to-date. (See Gilead stock analysis on TipRanks)