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Pfizer manufactures the Covid-19 antiviral drug Paxlovid in a laboratory in Freiburg
Photo: AFP / Pfizer
The US pharmaceutical manufacturer Pfizer has presented final study results on the effectiveness of an antiviral drug that is supposed to prevent serious and fatal courses of corona disease.
It found the drug reduced the risk of hospitalization and death in high-risk patients who received the drug within three days or less of symptoms appearing by 89 percent.
No deaths in the group who received the drug
The study includes data from around 2,250 test subjects.
None of the study participants who became infected with Sars-CoV-2 and received the drug from Pfizer died.
There were twelve deaths in the control group, whose members took a placebo.
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These data were reported to the US FDA.
The application for emergency approval is already running.
The new agent is administered as a combination preparation: Pfizer's pill, called nirmatrelvir, must be taken together with the well-known antiviral agent ritonavir - shortly after the onset of symptoms, every twelve hours for five days.
The combination treatment, consisting of two tablets of nirmatrelvir and one tablet of ritonavir, is said to be available under the name Paxlovid.
For example, ritonavir is currently used in the treatment of HIV infections.
The latest laboratory tests also indicated that the drug would retain its effectiveness even in the event of an infection with the Omicron variant.
Effect also in adults with normal risk
Pfizer also presented initial data from a second clinical study.
These preliminary results showed that treatment with the drug was able to reduce the number of hospital stays by around 70 percent, even in a group of 600 adults without previous illnesses or special health conditions.
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“We're talking about an incredible number of lives saved and hospitalizations prevented.
And of course we can drastically reduce the transmission if we use this agent quickly after infection, ”said Mikael Dolsten, who heads research at Pfizer.
Emergency approval from the FDA and other drug agencies is expected shortly.
The US government has already ordered ten million treatment units for more than five billion dollars.
The Merck drug molnupiravir appears to be less effective
So far, no antiviral tablets against Covid-19 have been approved in the USA.
The pharmaceutical company Merck & Co. had also applied for emergency approval for its pill molnupiravir.
But in a clinical study with high-risk patients, the drug was only able to reduce hospital stays and deaths by around 30 percent.
In the meantime, there are also increasing reports of possible damage to health from treatment with molnupiravir.
vki / Reuters