Remdesivir was one of the earliest promising candidates to treat covid-19 since it had promising results - in the lab - against other coronaviruses like SARS and MERS. It did not have results in humans because those viruses went away before in vivo testing could be performed.

Will it work? If it was a runaway success, I would have expected any of the current clinical trials to be cut short as the difference between placebo and non-placebo patients would have been obvious. That hadn't happened. I'm still hoping it has some positive effect.

The drug also had to administered through an IV over several days. It is not a pill you take. If it works, this makes treatment a little bit more difficult. You can't just give patients a pill and send them home.