Chimerix announced Tuesday evening that they would provide 7-year-old Josh Hardy with Brincidofovir, a drug that was in clinical trials, beginning Wednesday.
The request began after doctors told Hardy's family that the experimental drug could be the cure he needs, so they began a big push on social media pleading with the 13-year-old drug-maker to help save Hardy's life by releasing the drug.
» Click here for to see the campaign «
Federal regulators allow drug companies to release experimental drugs to a patient with life-threatening diseases who've tried and failed other available treatments.
"There is somebody that has in the palm of their hand a medicine that could just fix it and we can't get it," Josh's mother, Aimee Hardy, said earlier Tuesday from St. Jude's in Tennessee where Josh was last listed in critical condition.
Josh Hardy has beaten cancer four times since he was 9 months old, but since a bone marrow transplant in January, he's been fighting a severe virus.
Chimerix had maintained that releasing the medicine would hurt others, but in a statement issued Tuesday evening, they said that it, "reached an agreement with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the immediate initiation of a pilot trial of open-label brincidofovir for the treatment of adenovirus infections in immunocompromised patients."
» Click here to read the full statement. «
The new open-label study will include a total of 20 patients with the same condition as Hardy.
"It is completely unbelievable what has transpired since last Thursday, nothing short of a miracle," Aimee Hardy told ABC11 Wednesday. "We are so thankful that Chimerix was able to release the medicine for Josh."
Josh Hardy is currently still in ICU, but his family says they are focusing on him making a full recovery.
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