Washington / New York The US pharmaceutical company Merck & Co. reported success in treating corona patients with a new drug on Friday. The group announced that the number of hospital admissions and deaths had fallen by half as a result of taking the tablet. The company now wants to quickly apply for approval of the drug in the USA and other countries.
Investors celebrated the hopeful results of the study before the stock market went public with an increase of more than eight percent at times.
If approved, the drug would be the first pill that can be used to treat Covid-19 – a potentially important advance in the fight against the pandemic. The drug can be taken easily at home – four pills twice a day. All Covid-19 therapies currently approved in the USA, on the other hand, require an infusion or injection.
Merck and its partner Ridgeback Biotherapeutics announced that according to initial study results, patients who received the drug molnupiravir within five days of the onset of symptoms of Covid-19 were only half as likely to be hospitalized or to die of the disease as patients who were received a placebo.
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775 adults with mild to moderate disease took part in the study. They were all at higher risk of developing serious illness from the coronavirus due to health problems like obesity, diabetes, or heart disease.
“Results exceeded expectations”
Of the patients who received molnupiravir, 7.3 percent were reported to have either been hospitalized or died within 30 days, compared with 14.1 percent of those who received placebo. After this period, there were no deaths in the drug group compared to eight deaths in the placebo group. The results have been published by Merck and have not yet been independently verified by experts.
An independent group of medical experts who monitored the study recommended early termination because the interim results were so convincing. Managers at the company said they were in talks with the US FDA and planned to submit the data for review in the coming days.
“The results exceeded my expectations for the drug in this clinical trial,” said Dean Li, vice president of research at Merck. “If the number of hospitalizations or deaths can be reduced by 50 percent, that is a significant clinical effect.”
Previous study results showed that the drug did not help patients who were already hospitalized with a serious illness. Merck’s tablet works by interfering with an enzyme that the coronavirus uses to copy its genetic code and reproduce. A similar effect has also been demonstrated with other viruses.
US government wants to buy 1.7 million cans
“That is a phenomenal result. This is a fundamental game changer, “said Scott Gottlieb, the former FDA chairman who sits on the board of directors at Pfizer, the business broadcaster CNBC. He points out that the study was carried out with high-risk patients who already had symptoms. If you gave the drug beforehand, it would probably be even more effective, said Gottlieb.
“I believe this will save many thousands of lives around the world where there is less access to monoclonal antibodies, and in this country too,” said Robert Shafer, an expert in antiviral therapy at Stanford University, told the New York Times.
The US government has announced that it will buy 1.7 million doses of the drug if it is approved by the FDA. Merck & Co. announced that they could produce ten million cans by the end of the year and have signed contracts with governments around the world. Nothing was known about the prices for the drug.
Results from two more antiviral pills used to treat Covid are also expected in the coming months: Pfizer and Atea Pharmaceuticals with Roche.
This is the second big news this week for Merck. The US pharmaceutical company announced on Thursday that it plans to take over the biotech company Acceleron for around $ 11.5 billion. Merck is thus strengthening its business with drugs against rare diseases.
More: US group Merck & Co. joins Seattle Genetics.