Drug is designed to prevent the coronavirus from making copies of itself.<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n
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FRIDAY, Nov. 5, 2021 (HealthDay News) — Pfizer Inc. announced Friday that its experimental COVID-19 pill slashed the risk of hospitalization and death by 89 percent in infected high-risk people.<\/p>\n
The five-day treatment, when given within three days of infection, was so effective in a clinical trial that an independent monitoring committee recommended the trial be stopped early, Pfizer said.<\/p>\n
The antiviral pill, the second of its kind to show the power to guard against severe COVID-19, appears to be even more effective than a similar offering from Merck. Merck’s pill, molnupiravir, halved the risk of severe disease in high-risk patients. British regulators cleared the pill for use this week in people who are diagnosed with COVID-19 and have at least one risk factor for severe illness, The Washington Post<\/em> reported. In the United States, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory committee plans to meet shortly after Thanksgiving to assess Merck’s pill. Merck has said it can produce 10 million treatment courses in 2021.<\/p>\n As for Pfizer’s antiviral pill, the findings have not been peer-reviewed or published yet, but the data will be submitted to regulators “as soon as possible,” the company said in a news release<\/a>. The drug, which will be sold under the name Paxlovid, is designed to prevent the coronavirus from making copies of itself.<\/p>\n Pfizer has already started making the drug and expects to produce more than 180,000 pill packs by the end of this year, boosting that to a total of 50 million in 2022, The Post<\/em> reported. No price for the pill has been disclosed by the company.<\/p>\n