Merck’s cheap Covid pill raises hopes for developing world

As Merck races ahead with an experimental pill that could play a pivotal role in the fight against Covid-19, efforts are intensifying to bring the drug to developing countries that have struggled to vaccinate their populations.

The global health agency Unitaid and its partners hope to reach an agreement as soon as this week to secure the first supplies of the antiviral treatment for lower — and middle — income nations, Philippe Duneton, its executive director, said in an interview. Unitaid has been in discussions with the company and generic manufacturers, he said.

“This is really what we’ve waited for all these months,” he said. “There is a window of hope with this treatment, and now we need to collectively make it work for people” in less well-to-do countries.

The drug, known as molnupiravir, reduced the risk of hospitalisation or death by 50% in an interim analysis of a late-stage clinical trial, Merck and partner Ridgeback Biotherapeutics said Friday. 

Potentially the drug could be very cheap to manufacture and available at a low cost in developing nations, benefiting millions of people.

—  Andrew Hill, a senior research fellow at the University of Liverpool

On the vaccine front, lower-income nations have been left behind. About nine months after the arrival of Covid shots, more than 55 countries have yet to vaccinate 10% of their populations. More than two dozen nations are below 2%.

If the new medication hits the market, it could be a turning point in the pandemic. The results were so positive that Merck and Ridgeback — in consultation with independent trial monitors and the US Food and Drug Administration — elected to stop enrolling patients and begin the process of gaining regulatory clearance. 

Merck plans to submit the data to other regulators worldwide. 

The company earlier this year announced it had signed non-exclusive voluntary licensing agreements for the drug with five generic manufacturers in India, in a bid to accelerate availability in more than 100 low- and middle-income countries after approvals or emergency authorisation by local regulatory agencies.

Potentially the drug could be very cheap to manufacture and available at a low cost in developing nations, benefiting millions of people, Andrew Hill, a senior research fellow at the University of Liverpool, said. 

“This could be a major advance in the treatment of Covid-19,” he said.

The company said in a statement that it expects to produce 10-million courses of treatment by year-end, with more expected in 2022. In June, the company agreed to a $1.2bn (R17.8bn) supply deal with the US government, under which it would provide 1.7-million courses of the treatment.

— Bloomberg News. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com