 Josh Hardy, a first-grader at Hugh Mercer Elementary School in Fredericksburg, is set to receive a potentially lifesaving drug while fighting for his life at St. Jude Children’s Research Center in Memphis, Tenn. The company had previously denied calls from the 7-year-old's family to give him the drug, brincidofovir, arguing that spending the time to help Josh and others like him would slow down efforts to get the drug on the market. We are grateful for the efforts of Chimerix, the FDA and many others who worked to achieve this outcome. “We have been working aggressively and intimately with the FDA for a long period of time,” Kenneth Moch, the president and CEO of Chimerix, said in a telephone interview with The Free Lance–Star on Tuesday night. "Glory to GOD!" "They are releasing the drug for Josh!!!!!!!!!" In an emotional Facebook post, mother Aimee Hardy praised the company's decision. The company had been in talks with the FDA, but could not reveal that because it did not want to get hopes up, Moch said. Brincindofovir will be released to 20 patients in an open-label study, beginning today with Josh. Josh's story drew national attention as his parents and supporters pushed the company to change its mind in online and media campaigns. A Facebook page dedicated to the online campaign to help Josh get the medicine posted a thank-you message to supporters Tuesday night. In cancer drug battle, both sides appeal to ethics 
 
 CNN's Ed Payne, Jennifer Moore and Jennifer Bixler contributed to this report.
– After a social media campaign—and an avalanche of bad publicity—a drug company has done a U-turn and agreed to give a dying 7-year-old boy an experimental drug that could save his life. The FDA allows "compassionate use"of unapproved drugs in such cases, but the Chimerix pharmaceutical company had insisted that giving the drug to Josh Hardy, who developed a bone marrow disorder after cancer treatment, would delay efforts to get it to market, CNN reports. Chimerix president Kenneth Moch says Josh will be the first patient in a pilot trial for the drug. "Being unable to fulfill requests for compassionate use is excruciating, and not a decision any one of us ever wants to have to make," says Moch, who tells the Fredericksburg Lance-Star that he and his employees have received death threats amid a flood of pleas to help the Virginia boy. Josh is expected to receive the drug within 48 hours, though his mother fears he is running out of time. "Even though he is frail, he has a very strong will about him," she tells Fox News. "But things just keep stacking against him, and we just want to do everything we can to give him the opportunity to make a full recovery."