PASCO COUNTY, Fla. — With prices ranging from the $2,000-$3,000 range for a course of treatment, not many would call Gilead Science's remdesivir cheap. Still, University of South Florida public health professor Dr. Marissa Levine said that's not unusual when compared with other new medications, given the costs associated with the testing and regulatory process.

"It sounds like a lot, and honestly, for anybody who doesn't have insurance, it will be a lot. But most of the folks who will likely receive that will have some coverage through an insurance," Levine said. "With respect to new medications, no, it's probably not a lot of money in comparison, because there are lots of costs in the development of these drugs."

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, patients usually don't pay for hospital-administered drugs such as remdesivir; instead, the cost is usually included in payments made by the insurer. 

HHS said it secured more than 500,000 treatment courses for U.S. hospitals through September. Remdesivir is an experimental drug that appears to be the first effective treatment against COVID-19. Preliminary study results showed the drug helped reduce hospital stays for critically ill patients.

"It's really hard to put a price tag on that. If it helps somebody get better, it's priceless," Levine said. "But at the end of the day, we have limited resources and we have to figure out how to best use those resources to have maximum impact on as many people as possible."

Still, Levine said the question of how exactly insurance will handle the cost gets at the heart of the issue with what she said is the nation's fragmented health care system. She said with multiple payers, including the federal government's Medicare and Medicaid programs and private insurers, it's hard to tell what the financial impact will be to individual patients.

She also questions whether help will be available to those without insurance.

"If you're sick in a hospital, it's actually the last thing you want to be thinking of, and certainly your family, but it is a significant issue in our health care system," Levine said.

The plan is for HHS to allocate the supply of remdesivir to health departments based on the COVID-19 burden to hospitals. Those departments will then distribute it to hospitals.

"This is an evolving issue. We have a lot more to learn. It likely won't be the last medication that comes to the forefront to deal with COVID," Levine said.