GREAT NEWS - A pill to save high-risk patients with Covid

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(MarketWatch) -- Ciara Linnane

Former FDA head says Merck's oral pill could become a powerful tool in
combating COVID in high-risk patients who are already symptomatic

Merck cheered investors and healthcare experts alike on Friday with the news
that its COVID-19 antiviral cut the risk of hospitalization or death by
roughly half in a late-stage trial, and could become a powerful tool in
reining in the pandemic.

The drug company (MRK) said molnupiravir, an oral antiviral developed with
partner Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, reduced the risk of hospitalization or
death in at-risk adult patients with mild to moderate COVID by about 50% in an
interim analysis of data from a late-stage trial. The data came from 775
patients out of 1,550 that were enrolled in the trial.

Merck shares soared 9% in early trades Friday as investors welcomed what would
be a much-needed and long-awaited treatment for COVID. While several effective
vaccines have been developed against the illness, far fewer treatments have
emerged, and those that have require infusions and must be administered in a
clinical setting.

Molnupiravir is a pill administered orally in capsule form every 12 hours for
five days, according to clinicaltrials.gov

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Through Day 29 in the Phase 3 trial, no patients given molnupiravir died,
compared with the eight patients who died on the placebo. The company is now
planning to submit an application for emergency-use authorization for the
treatment from the Food and Drug Administration and to seek authorizations
from other regulatory bodies around the world.

Merck plans to produce 10 million courses of treatment by year-end. The U.S.
government has already committed to purchasing about 1.7 million courses of
the drug, once it receives an EUA.