FDA authorizes CPAP machines and more as emergency ventilator alternatives

The FDA issued a wide-ranging emergency policy allowing alternative devices to be used as potentially lifesaving ventilators as shortages begin to impact hospitals’ responses to the coronavirus pandemic. This includes modified anesthesia gas hardware and positive-pressure breathing devices as well as home continuous positive airway pressure machines used to treat sleep apnea, portable oxygen generators […]

Gilead halts emergency access to COVID-19 contender remdesivir amid ‘overwhelming demand’

Since the early days of the current coronavirus outbreak, Gilead Sciences’ experimental antiviral drug remdesivir has been hailed as a leading hope. That halo has apparently overwhelmed the Big Biotech. Gilead has temporarily stopped granting patients emergency access to remdesivir under compassionate use due to an “exponential increase” in requests over the last few days, […]

UPDATED: Biogen staffer fled to China in search of emergency Covid-19 testing, care — and now faces criminal charges

A Biogen employee who has contracted Covid-19 in Massachusetts fled to Beijing alongside her family. And now she faces criminal charges for lying about her condition on the way back. The company confirmed to Endpoints News that the woman, identified by Chinese officials as Ms. Li, works for the company but said she didn’t attend the strategy […]