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Molnupiravir will be the first drug that patients can recover from the disease at home.
As the US Food and Drug Administration waits for outside experts to review Merck’s new pill for Covid-19 next month, countries around the world are scrambling to order an antiviral drug called Molnupiravir.
If a decision is made and the regulatory agency approves the drug, the capsule will not only become the first oral antiviral treatment for Covid, but also a savior for those who cannot be vaccinated, as it will reduce hospitalization rates by at least 50%, according to Report.
According to CNN, some countries in the Asia-Pacific region are already negotiating to purchase the drug.
The Ministry of Health of Singapore has signed a purchase agreement for monelavir, and the European Medicines Agency is considering a rolling review of the drug.
Since last year, three IV antibody drugs have been approved to reduce Covid-19 hospitalizations and deaths, but they are expensive, difficult to produce, and require professional equipment and health professionals to provide them. If approved, molnupiravir will be the first drug that allows patients to relieve symptoms and accelerate recovery at home.
“(Molnupiravir) really has the potential to change the rules of the game,” Rachel Cohen, the North American executive director of the non-profit Neglected Disease Drug Program, was quoted in the report.
“We need to make sure we don’t repeat history — we don’t fall into the same pattern as the Covid vaccine or repeat the same mistakes we saw in the Covid vaccine,” she added.
Although the vaccine is the best way to prevent the coronavirus, a large part of the population in some countries in the Asia-Pacific region has not been vaccinated due to lack of access to the vaccine. This is where Merck’s pills might come in handy.
Associate Professor Nial Wheate of the School of Pharmacy at the University of Sydney said in the report: “This drug will become a frontline solution for those who eventually get sick.”
“I think this drug will be a better solution than vaccination,” he added.
However, experts say that this pill is not a substitute for vaccines.
At the same time, Merck and its partner Ridgeback Biotherapeutic submitted an application to the FDA on Monday, requiring the agency to provide emergency use for adults with mild to moderate Covid-19 who are at risk of serious illness or hospitalization. This is roughly the same as the available infusion medications.
The company announced preliminary results earlier this month, showing that its drug cut the number of hospitalizations and deaths of patients with early Covid-19 symptoms by half. The company has not disclosed detailed information about the side effects of monupiravir, but just convinced that the incidence of these problems is similar between those who use the drug and those who take the counterfeit drug.
Merck has not set a price on molnupiravir, and they said they will do so once it is approved.
Pfizer, Roche, and Appili Therapeutics are all investigating similar drugs and are expected to report results in the coming weeks and months.
What is Monopivir?
Molnupiravir belongs to a class of antiviral drugs called mutagenic ribonucleosides. It changes the viral genetic material and introduces errors to prevent the replication and transcription of the viral genome.
In the host cell, molnupiravir is converted to molnupiravir triphosphate. When the virus tries to replicate, monelavir triphosphate is incorporated into the viral RNA instead of the nucleoside cytidine, causing mutations.
This mutation prevents the virus from replicating, thereby reducing the number of viruses and the severity of the disease.
(Input from AP)
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