Now Pfizer brings out Covid pill

Paxlovid a Covid experimental pill developed by the US company Pfizer cuts the risk of hospitalisation or death in vulnerable adults, according to their clinical trial.

Pfizer says it stopped trials early as the initial results were so positive. The UK has already ordered 250, 000 courses of the new Pfizer treatment along with another 480, 000 courses of the MSD pill.

The Pfizer drug, known as a protease inhibitor, is designed to block an enzyme the virus needs in order to multiply, and works differently to the Merck pill which introduces errors into the genetic code of the virus. Pfizer plans to  submit interim trial results for its pill to the FDA, the US medicines regulator, as part of the emergency use application it started last month.

In Pfizer trial of 1, 219 unvaccinated adults, five days of treatment with its drug dramatically reduced the rate of hospitalisation when it was started within either three days or five days of symptom onset, and some drugs for HIV work in a similar way according to Pfizer Inc whose shares surged 11 per cent. Merck shares fell 6.6 per cent, Moderna Inc down 4.5 per cent, Pfizer partner BioNTech SE slipping 4 per cent in German trading.

Dr. Annaliesa Anderson, Chief Scientific Officer for Pfizer’s business unit which includes its antiviral work said “ We are really over the Moon that we did see such high efficacy in this study. It has tremendous implications for patients globally.”

Pfizer expects tyo produce  180, 000 packs of the drug by the end of this year, and anticipates making at least 50 million packs by the end of 2022, with 21 million produced in the first half of the year.