IIRC it is well-known how to synthesize remdesivir, so nobody would actually have to reverse-engineer anything, but this stuff is particularly hard to synthesiz

IIRC it is well-known how to synthesize remdesivir, so nobody would actually have to reverse-engineer anything, but this stuff is particularly hard to synthesize on an industrial level, with some steps in the process taking weeks to complete without easy ways to speed it up. Also, each step only has a certain yield which is relatively low, so you need to put in a comparatively huge amount of raw material into the first step in order to get a tiny amount of remdesivir out from the last step, months later. It seems a little bit like producing Whisky: you can't just decide now to produce a huge batch of 12-year-old Lagavulin and have it ready next month.