Drugmaker Pfizer Inc. has signed a deal with a U.N.-backed group to allow other manufacturers to make its experimental COVID-19 pill, a move that could make the treatment available to more than half of the world’s population.
In a statement issued Tuesday, Pfizer said it would grant a license for the antiviral pill to the Geneva-based Medicines Patent Pool, which would let generic drug companies produce the pill for use in 95 countries, making up about 53 per cent of the world’s population.
“It’s quite significant that we will be able to provide access to a drug that appears to be effective and has just been developed, to more than four billion people,” Esteban Burrone, head of policy at the Medicines Patent Pool, said. He estimated that other drugmakers would be able to start producing the pill within months.
Earlier this month, Pfizer said its pill cut the risk of hospitalization and death by nearly 90 per cent in people with mild to moderate coronavirus infections. And will ask the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and other regulators to authorize the pill as soon as possible.
Since the pandemic erupted last year, researchers worldwide have raced to develop a pill to treat COVID-19 that can be taken at home easily to ease symptoms, speed recovery and keep people out of the hospital. At the moment, most COVID-19 treatments must be delivered intravenously or by injection.
Britain authorized the Merck’s COVID-19 pill earlier this month, and it is pending approval elsewhere. In a similar deal with the Medicines Patent Pool announced in October, Merck agreed to let other drugmakers make its COVID-19 pill, molnupiravir, available in 105 poorer countries.
“The world knows by now that access to COVID-19 medical tools needs to be guaranteed for everyone, everywhere, if we really want to control this pandemic,” said Yuanqiong Hu, a senior legal policy adviser at Doctors Without Borders.
Source:https://globalnews.ca/news/8376742/pfizer-covid-19-pill-patent-wave/
