A new study provides important insights into the pharmacokinetics and safety of intravenous remdesivir in treating the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus in pregnant women. Remdesivir is an antiviral medication and is used to treat certain patients with COVID-19 who are either hospitalized or have mild-to-moderate symptoms in the outpatient setting and are at high risk of severe disease. The study, in , is the first pharmacokinetic study to be published on a COVID-19 therapy in .
Pharmacokinetic studies help researchers understand the concentrations of drugs in the blood, how they distribute through and get eliminated from the body and whether the doses of medications are within a safe and effective range to help treat the condition they are being used for. "Pregnant people are often left behind in , and because of this, there's usually not much supporting data available for health care providers about the appropriate dosage, safety and effectiveness of medications in this population," said first author Kristina Brooks, PharmD, assistant professor of at the University of Colorado Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, located on the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. To study the pharmacokinetics and safety of remdesivir, Brooks worked as part of the International Maternal Pediatric Adolescent AIDS Clinical Trials Network 2032 Team (IMPAACT 2032) to conduct a phase 4 open-label, nonrandomized study of over fifty hospitalized pregnant and nonpregnant women rec.