Pharmaceutical giant announced on Saturday that its antiviral drug molnupiravir significantly reduced viral load in COVID patients.
Delivering the information to infectious disease experts, the company said that the drug caused the drop in viral loads five days after administration to COVID patients.
“At a time where there is unmet need for antiviral treatments against SARS-CoV-2, we are encouraged by these preliminary data,” said Wendy Painter, chief medical officer of the US firm, Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, which developed the drug in concert with Merck.
Merck had stopped development of two vaccine candidates earlier on, but has been pressing ahead with two possible treatments for COVID.
The experimental drug, also known as EIDD-2801, is currently in its Phase 2a trials. It would need to complete the third phase trials to gain approval. Molnupiravir was originally developed to treat influenza viruses, and its mechanism of action is thought to be through inducing RNA transcription errors in viruses, leading to a transcription catastrophe. This mechanism also inherently creates a significant barrier for viral escape from the drug.
The clinical trials enrolled 202 participants with COVID, who were not hospitalised. There were no safety alerts for the drug, and the four serious adverse events that did occur were not considered to be associated with the drug, Ms Painter said.
William Fischer, lead investigator of the study and a professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina said that these were promising results, adding: “If supported by additional studies, (they) could have important public health implications, particularly as the SARS-CoV-2 virus continues to spread and evolve globally.”
The company is testing another drug in clinical trials, MK-711, preliminary results for which have indicated a 50% drop in viral load in mild and severe COVID patients.
Source: Medical Xpress
