Merck will share formula for its Covid pill with poor countries

World
By Editor_1
Molnupiravir, an antiviral pill made by Merck to treat COVID-19 may keep newly diagnosed people out of the hospital and prevent them from dying MERCK SHARP & DOHME CORP
0
By Stephanie Nolen

WASHINGTON – Merck has granted a royalty-free licence for its promising COVID-19 pill to a United Nations-backed nonprofit in a deal that would allow the drug to be manufactured and sold cheaply in the poorest nations, where vaccines for the coronavirus are in devastatingly short supply.

The agreement with the Medicines Patent Pool, an organization that works to make medical treatment and technologies globally accessible, will allow companies in 105 countries, mostly in Africa and Asia, to sublicence the formulation for the antiviral pill, called molnupiravir, and begin making it.

Merck reported this month that the drug halved the rate of hospitalizations and deaths in high-risk COVID patients in a large clinical trial. Affluent nations, including the United States, have rushed to negotiate deals to buy the drug, tying up large portions of the supply even before it has been approved by regulators and raising concerns that poor countries would be shut out of access to the medicine, much as they have been for vaccines.

Treatment-access advocates welcomed the new deal, which was announced Wednesday (27) morning, calling it an unusual step for a major Western pharmaceutical company.

“The Merck licence is a very good and meaningful protection for people living in countries where more than half of the world’s population lives,” said James Love, who leads Knowledge Ecology International, a nonprofit research organization. “It will make a difference.”

Charles Gore, director of the Medicines Patent Pool, said: “This is the first transparent public health license for a COVID medicine, and really importantly, it is for something that could be used outside of hospitals, and which is potentially going to be very cheap.”

Gore said that more than 50 companies, from all regions of the developing world, have already approached the organization about obtaining a sublicense. Pfizer also has a COVID antiviral pill in late-stage trials, and Gore said the company is also in talks with the patent pool.

Molnupiravir was developed by Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics of Miami, based on a molecule first studied at Emory University in Atlanta. All three organizations are party to this deal.

Merck has submitted its clinical trial data to the Food and Drug Administration seeking emergency-use authorization; a decision could come in early December.

-New York Times

Editor_1
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