NIAID Receives Impact Award for Work on Remdesivir

The National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) has been recognized by the FLC for their impact on the public through their technology transfer work. NIH was awarded six of the 33 awards across nine different technology transfer categories, in addition to a COVID-19 Response award, that the FLC gave out. The FLC supports federal laboratories, agencies, and research centers by encouraging commercialization best practices and creating opportunities to move federal technologies from the labs and into the marketplace and each year rewards the technology transfer work that makes the largest impact.

On February 21, 2020 NIAID’s Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (DMID) started an Adaptive COVID-19 Treatment Trial (ACTT) to test Gilead’s antiviral drug remdesivir, in a phase 3 trial. Remdesivir is an inhibitor of the viral RNA polymerase, so it became an early therapeutic candidate for COVID-19. This was the first clinical trial in the U.S. for an experimental treatment for COVID-19. The FDA approved remdesivir for the treatment of COVID-19 patients on October 22, 2020, and it became the first therapy to receive FDA approval. For their work in initiating a large international clinical trial for a potential treatment within weeks of the discovery of SARS-CoV-2, submission name “Enable ACTT trial to test remdesivir as a COVID-19 treatment”, NIAID took home the award for Impact.

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