The registration for antiviral drug Remdesivir's clinical trials has been approved. The first batch of critical patients infected by the novel coronavirus will start taking the drug on Thursday, reported Xinhua News Agency.

The approval is jointly supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MST), the National Health Commission and the National Medical Products Administration.

Remdesivir is a drug developed by Gilead Sciences, an American pharmaceutical company, said Cao Bin, head of the drug's clinical trials program at the conference held by the MST at Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital.

In previous cells and animal experiments, Remdesivir showed good antiviral activity against SARS and MERS coronavirus. In recent studies conducted in China, it also showed good antiviral activity against the novel coronavirus at the cellular level.

According to Cao, 761 patients have been enrolled in the trials, which will adopt a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study method.