The US Food and Drug Administration on Thursday licensed Merck & Co.’s antiviral tablet for COVID-19, after shifting on to the same remedy a day sooner than Pfizer Inc.
Merck’s drug, mollupiravir, developed with Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, was proven to scale back hospitalization and demise by about 30% in a scientific trial of high-risk people early within the illness.
The company has licensed the oral drug for the remedy of delicate to average COVID-19 in adults who’re vulnerable to extreme illness, and for whom different COVID-19 therapies aren’t accessible or medically acceptable.
The US authorities has a contract to purchase 5 million programs of the drug for $700 per course.
The FDA mentioned in a press release that the drug just isn’t licensed to be used in sufferers youthful than 18 years previous as a result of mollupiravir can have an effect on the expansion of bone and cartilage.
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With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
