Royalty-free license means companies in 105 countries can sublicense the formulation for antiviral pill molnupiravir and start making it<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n
<\/b><\/p>\n
<\/b><\/p>\n
WEDNESDAY, Oct. 27, 2021 (HealthDay News) — A deal for the Merck COVID-19 pill to be made and sold cheaply in poor nations has been reached with Medicines Patent Pool, a United Nations-backed nonprofit organization.<\/p>\n
The royalty-free license means that companies in 105 countries, mostly in Africa and Asia, can sublicense the formulation for the antiviral pill molnupiravir and start making it, The New York Times<\/em> reported.<\/p>\n Earlier this month, Merck announced that a large clinical trial showed that the drug cut the rate of hospitalizations and deaths among high-risk COVID-19 patients in half. The company has submitted that data to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration seeking emergency use authorization, with a decision expected in early December.<\/p>\n There were concerns that wealthy nations would grab large amounts of the drug and leave poorer nations with little or no access to it, which has occurred with COVID-19 vaccines.<\/p>\n Advocates for treatment access welcomed the Merck agreement with Medicines Patent Pool. “The Merck license is a very good and meaningful protection for people living in countries where more than half of the world’s population lives,” James Love, who directs Knowledge Ecology International, a nonprofit research organization, told The Times<\/em>. “It will make a difference.”<\/p>\n More than 50 companies in the developing world have already approached the Medicines Patent Pool about obtaining a sublicense for the pill, according to the organization’s director, Charles Gore. The deal “is the first transparent public health license for a COVID medicine, and really importantly, it is for something that could be used outside of hospitals, and which is potentially going to be very cheap,” Gore told The Times<\/em>. “This is hopefully going to make things a lot easier in terms of keeping people out of hospital and stopping people dying in low- and middle-income countries.”<\/p>\n