Pfizer to allow Bangladesh, 94 other countries to produce its COVID-19 pill

GBNEWS24DESK//

Pfizer has said it will allow drug manufacturers in 95 low- and middle-income countries including Bangladesh to produce its experimental antiviral COVID-19 pill under a licensing agreement with international public health group Medicines Patent Pool (MPP).

The licensing agreement between Pfizer and the MPP will allow qualified generic drug manufacturers to make their own versions of COVID-19 pills. Pfizer will sell the pills under the brand name ‘Paxlovid’.

Pfizer, which also makes one of the mostly widely used COVID-19 vaccines, has said the pill cut the chance of hospitalization or death for adults at risk of severe disease by 89% in its clinical trial. The drug will be used in combination with Ritonavir, an HIV drug that is already available generically.

Pfizer’s licensing deal follows a similar arrangement by rival Merck & Co for generic manufacturing of its COVID-19 treatment. The deals are unusual arrangements that acknowledge the dire need for effective treatments as well as the pressure drugmakers are under to make their life saving drugs accessible at very low costs.

“We are extremely pleased to have another weapon in our armoury to protect people from the ravages of COVID-19,” Charles Gore, Executive Director of the Medicines Patent Pool, said in an interview.

Gore said he hoped the generic version of Pfizer’s drug will be available within months.

The 95 countries in the license agreement cover around 53% of the world’s population and include all low- and lower-middle-income countries and some upper-middle-income countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. They also include countries that have transitioned from lower-middle to upper-middle-income status in the past five years, Pfizer and the MPP said.

“We believe oral antiviral treatments can play a vital role in reducing the severity of COVID-19 infections… We must work to ensure that all people – regardless of where they live or their circumstances – have access to these breakthroughs,” Pfizer Chief Executive Albert Bourla said in a statement.