Antiviral Covid pill 89% effective, Pfizer says

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An experimental pill to treat Covid developed by the US company Pfizer cuts the risk of hospitalisation or death by 89% in vulnerable adults, clinical trial results suggest, reports BBC.

The drug – Paxlovid – is intended for use soon after symptoms develop in people at high risk of severe disease.

It comes a day after the UK medicines regulator approved a similar treatment from Merck Sharp and Dohme (MSD).

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 MSD’s molnupiravir pill.

The Pfizer drug, known as a protease inhibitor, is designed to block an enzyme the virus needs in order to multiply. When taking alongside a low dose of another antiviral pill called ritonavir, it stays in the body for longer.

The combination treatment works slightly differently to the Merck pill which introduces errors into the genetic code of the virus.

Pfizer said it plans to submit interim trial results for its pill to the US medicines regulator, the FDA, as part of the emergency use application it started last month.

Pfizer’s chairman and chief executive officer Albert Bourla said the pill had “the potential to save patients’ lives, reduce the severity of Covid-19 infections, and eliminate up to nine out of 10 hospitalisations”.