Pharmaceutical Pfizer reported on Friday (5) that its experimental antiviral pill against the coronavirus reduced the risk of hospitalization and death in high-risk patients who participated in the study. The chances of severe cases were reduced by 89% with the drug. No deaths were reported among people who took the drug.
Pfizer said it plans to submit interim test results for its pill, which is given in combination with an older antiviral called ritonavir, to the US Food and Drug Administration as part of the emergency use order it opened in October.
The combination treatment, which will be branded as Paxlovid, consists of three pills taken twice a day for three days.
Treatment prevents deaths but has side effects
The pill, still known by the experimental name PF-07321332, was designed to stop the virus from multiplying. Administering it along with ritonavir slows its degradation in the body, the company said.
The planned analysis of 1,219 patients in the Pfizer study looked at hospitalizations or deaths among people diagnosed with mild to moderate Covid-19 with at least one risk factor for developing serious illness, such as obesity or old age.
Pfizer said that 0.8% of patients who received the drug combination within three days were hospitalized within four weeks – three of 389 patients – compared with 7% of patients who received placebo, or 27 of 385. placebo recipients died, Pfizer said. No one who received the treatment died in the same period.
Also according to study data, 19% of patients who received the treatment experienced adverse events, compared with 21% who received placebo, but Pfizer declined to reveal what those adverse events were.
“These data suggest that our oral antiviral candidate, if approved by regulatory authorities, has the potential to save patients’ lives, reduce the severity of Covid-19 infections and eliminate up to nine out of ten hospitalizations,” said Albert Bourla , chief executive of Pfizer, in a statement.
The results presented by Pfizer surpass those seen with Merck Sharp & Dohme’s molnupiravir pill, which was shown last month to halve the likelihood of dying or being hospitalized for Covid-19 patients also at high risk of serious illness.
The United Kingdom on Thursday (4) authorized the use of the MSD drug against Covid-19.
Reference: CNN Brasil
