A new University of Iowa study finds that remdesivir, the first new medicine approved for treatment of COVID-19, did not improve survival rates and was actually associated with longer hospital stays for patients. The research, led by Dr. Michael Ohl, associate professor of internal medicine in the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, raises concerns that remdesivir treatment may have increased the use of hospital beds when they were scarce during the COVID-19 pandemic — without clear improvements in survival. “Examination of time to remdesivir completion and discharge suggests that clinicians may have been keeping people in hospital to complete five- and 10-day remdesivir courses, contributing to longer length of stay,” Ohl said in a UI article about the study. The results of the study contradict previous clinical trials of remdesivir, which suggested the treatment would shorten the time to clinical recovery for people hospitalized with the virus, allowing for faster discharge of patients from hospitals and more open beds to treat people during the pandemic.