Pharmaceutical Company Gives Experimental Drug to 7-Year-Old Boy

Seven-year-old Josh Hardy of Fredericksburg, Va., is suffering from an adenovirus infection that manifested after a bone marrow transplant. Yet thousands of people petitioned a drug manufacturing company based in North Carolina to help provide a potentially life-saving drug for his ailment. At this time, the company has decided to comply.

Hardy, a four-time cancer survivor, has a compromised immune system following the bone marrow transplant. Due to his predicament, doctors asked the company Chimerix to help provide the medication brincidofovir for the study.

Though the company initially turned down the doctors' request-stating that if they gave Hardy the experimental drug, they would also have to do so in similar cases, they changed their minds. 

"Being unable to fulfill requests for compassionate use is excruciating, and not a decision any one of us ever wants to have to make. It is essential that each individual in a health crisis be treated with equal gravity and value, a principle we have upheld by pursuing further clinical study of brincidofovir," the company's president and CEO, Kenneth Moch said according to USA Today.

The company decided to provide brincidofovir to the young boy. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the company's new plan is to provide the drug to 20 patients, with Hardy being the first. At this time, the drug will be sent over to the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn. within a 48-hour-period.

"This drug is experimental and has not yet been approved by the FDA and the safety and effectiveness of the medication has not yet been established for use in children. ... It is also important to understand that this remains a critical and complex medical situation," the hospital stated.

The family has expressed their gratitude for all the help, noting, via their Facebook Page: "You did it. You Saved Josh. Thank you Chimerix and Josh's Army."