In a late-stage clinical trial, a new antiviral pill halved the chance that patients diagnosed with COVID-19 would end up in the hospital or die from the disease, the drugmaker Merck announced Friday (Oct. 1).
In a late-stage clinical trial, a new antiviral pill halved the chance that patients diagnosed with COVID-19 would end up in the hospital or die from the disease, the drugmaker Merck announced Friday (Oct.1). The drug, called molnupiravir, was developed by Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics and could be the first oral medication specifically approved for the treatment of COVID-19, assuming the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorizes its use, Stat News reported. That said, data from the trial hasn’t yet been peer-reviewed, so the drug’s safety and efficacy still need to be confirmed. The pill works by introducing mutations into the coronavirus’s genetic material, or RNA, as the virus tries to make copies of itself, according to a report published Sept.13 in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology. In essence, once converted to its active form inside the body, the drug mimics a building block of RNA and wedges itself into the growing RNA sequence, thus gumming up the works. This antiviral mechanism is somewhat unusual, so safety data from the trial will need to be carefully assessed to see if the pill has any unintended effects, Dr. Andy Pavia, chief of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at University of Utah, told Stat News. Related: 20 of the worst epidemics and pandemics in history “With the virus continuing to circulate widely, and because therapeutic options currently available are infused and/or require access to a healthcare facility, antiviral treatments that can be taken at home to keep people with COVID-19 out of the hospital are critically needed,” Wendy Holman, chief executive officer of Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, said in the Merck statement.
