Anti Covid pills, will it be a war between Pfizer and Merck?
Here is the question and answer between the pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Merck on the respective anti Covid pills in the Financial Times article
Merck defended the safety profile of its Covid antiviral pill, molnupiravir, and argued that a treatment developed by competitor Pfizer will cause problems for some patients taking drugs for other conditions.
The criticism comes as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) questions whether it can authorize Merck's drug as the first easy-to-administer oral treatment.
Last week some experts outside the FDA voted in favor of the green light, but some members raised concerns about its efficacy and safety, including the fact that it could cause birth defects if taken by pregnant women or potentially help generate new variants of Covid.
In an interview with the Financial Times , Eliav Barr, senior vice president of global medical affairs at Merck, said that both antiviral drugs are needed to protect people from the virus, as some patients may not be able to take one or the other. other of the treatments due to possible side effects.
However, he added, a requirement for Pfizer's antiviral pill to be taken with ritonavir, a drug used to treat HIV, would make the treatment unsuitable for many people with pre-existing medical conditions.
"Ritonavir, which has been used in HIV therapy for many years, is a drug that specifically inhibits the body's ability to break down drugs," Barr said. “The problem is, it's incredibly non-specific. So there is a whole host of drugs that people take, especially those drugs, unfortunately, that are associated with conditions that confer risk ".
A study published in the scientific journal Nature last week identified an "overall high frequency" of drug-drug interactions in high-risk Covid patients in Spain treated with the antiviral drug lopinavir and ritonavir while in hospital. Such interactions have been "alarmingly overlooked in the context of the health crisis," the study authors concluded.
Pfizer said that ritonavir has a well-characterized safety profile when used alone or in combination with other drugs and in the event of drug interactions, these could in many cases be managed.
"For drugs that share a common pathway for the metabolism of products such as Pfizer's oral antiviral, during the five-day treatment period, most patients would be able to reduce the dose of their drugs and then return to the normal dosage after completing the oral antiviral regimen, ”a Pfizer spokesperson said.
Molnupiravir's licensing and commercial performance is important to Merck, which unlike Pfizer has not developed a vaccine. If the FDA grants emergency clearance for the drug, the US government has a contract to purchase 3.1 million doses for $ 2.2 billion.
After the release of data showing Pfizer's paxlovid antiviral pill is more effective than molnupiravir in reducing the risk of hospitalization or death from Covid, Merck's shares have lost 17% of their value in the past month.
UK and EU regulators granted emergency use or conditional permission for treatment last month.
However, the clearances were granted before Merck released the final clinical trial data, which showed the drug was 30% effective in reducing the risk of hospitalization and death in high-risk patients. This was well below the 50% effectiveness that Merck announced in October from a preliminary data analysis.
Last week Citi downgraded Merck from "buy" to "neutral", noting that the "clinical profile of molnupiravir continues to deteriorate."
Barr, however, said the safety profile of molnupiravir was "very strong" and many governments had expressed interest in acquiring supplies.
(Extract from the foreign press review by eprcomunicazione )
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/sanita/pillole-anti-covid-sara-guerra-tra-pfizer-e-merck/ on Sun, 12 Dec 2021 06:54:27 +0000.