Remdesivir is the new coronavirus buzzword popping up in headline after headline. Health officials have had their eyes on the investigational anti-viral drug for the past few weeks, hoping it may prove to be an effective treatment for COVID-19 , the disease caused by the new coronavirus .

Now, weve got a bit of evidence suggesting the medicine can speed up the time it takes a hospitalized COVID-19 patient to recover. Given the dire need for a cure, the Food and Drug Administration pounced on the findings and authorized the emergency use of remdesivir in hospitalized patients who need it (specifically adults and children who need oxygen therapy or a ventilator).

The manufacturer behind remdesivir, Gilead , is teaming up with the government to donate over 1 million vials of the drug to patients in need. (Gilead, some might remember, was involved in a 2019 lawsuit from the Trump administration accusing the drugmaker of guzzling money off of taxpayer-funded research on the leading HIV prevention therapy PrEP.)

Health experts are cautiously optimistic about remdesivir. However, even though theres some evidence that the experimental drug may help clear the virus out of a persons system, they want to see more studies validate the findings.

Heres what we know about the experimental anti-viral medication:

How remdesivir works

COVID-19 is caused by a viral infection. When the coronavirus infects one of our cells, perhaps in our nose or throat, the virus starts replicating itself over and over again to help spread the infection throughout the body.

Viruses essentially use our cells as little factories to make all of the genetic ingredients that allow them to survive and thrive in our bodies, said Matthew Heinz , a hospitalist and internist at the Tucson Medical Center. The more a virus replicates, the more widespread and harmful the infection can be.

Remdesivir is an anti-viral that prevents the virus from making copies of itself. Its a therapy that inhibits the ability of the virus to replicate, something that is commonly done in multiple other anti-viral agents, Heinz said.

A new study by the National Institutes of Health evaluating remdesivir and COVID-19 found that hospitalized coronavirus patients who took the drug experienced a 31% improvement in recovery time compared to patients who took a placebo. Patients who took the drug recovered in 11 days on average, whereas those who didnt made a comeback in 15 days.

The NIH study, which is the first trial in humans, also found the mortality rate was 11.6% in the placebo group and 8% in the treatment group.

Another study led by Stanford University on behalf of Gilead found that the treatment was just as effective when taken for five days as it was for 10 days. A difference of a few days may seem trivial, but in severe cases, even those few days could be life-changing.

Aruna Subramanian , a clinical professor of infectious disease and co-principal investigator of the Gilead trials at Stanford , said each day counts when youre in the intensive care unit.

Reducing your hospital stay by four days, from 15 days to 11 days, is very impressive in the middle of a pandemic where every day in the hospital counts, every day on oxygen counts. Having to use protective equipment to go in the rooms four days less of that is a big step, Subramanian said.