On Apr. 29, 2020, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that hospitalized patients with advanced COVID-19 and lung involvement who received remdesivir recovered faster than similar patients who received placebo, according to a preliminary data analysis from a randomized, controlled trial involving 1063 patients, which began Feb. 21.

The trial (known as the Adaptive COVID-19 Treatment Trial, or ACTT), sponsored by the NIAID, was the first clinical trial launched in the U.S. to evaluate an experimental treatment for COVID-19.