Pfizer has developed the latest potent oral drug for the covid-19

2021-11-09

Recently, former US FDA director and current director of Pfizer Gottlieb said that the US covid-19 epidemic may end in January next year.

Gottlieb said: "By January 4, after we have passed this wave of Delta virus infections, this pandemic, at least related to the United States, is likely to have ended." The reason is that Pfizer has developed a highly effective experimental anti-coronavirus drug Paxlovid.

Subsequently, Pfizer pulled up straight ahead of the U.S. stock market! As of Friday's close, it rose 10.88% to US$48.62, and its market value increased by US$26.8 billion from the previous day, or about 170 billion yuan.


Pfizer said that compared with placebo, its new crown oral trial drug Paxlovid, taken within three days after the onset of symptoms, can reduce the probability of hospitalization or death in mild and moderate adult patients by 89%, and can provide for infections that cause death 100% protection rate.


Paxlovid is mainly used to help high-risk susceptible people (with heart disease, diabetes, immune system deficiency, or obesity and advanced age), and it needs to be used within 3-5 days after the onset of covid-19 symptoms.


The data shows that among the 389 covid-19 patients who took Paxlovid within 3 days of the onset of symptoms, the probability of hospitalization was only 0.8%, and no one died. Among the 385 people who took a placebo, the probability of hospitalization was 7% and the probability of death was 1.8%.


The probability of being hospitalized was only 1% among patients who took it within 5 days of the onset of symptoms, compared with 6.7% in the placebo group, including 10 deaths.


Pfizer said these results show overwhelming efficacy and plans to submit the data to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as part of the rolling submission of data for emergency use authorization (EUA).


If approved or authorized, this therapy called Paxlovid will become the first oral antiviral drug for 3CL protease inhibitors.


Mikael Dolsten, Pfizer’s chief scientific officer, said that Pfizer plans to seek US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for the drug this month. If approved, Pfizer may deliver it this year.


Pfizer expects to produce 180,000 copies by the end of 2021 and 50 million copies by the end of next year, of which 21 million oral medicines will be produced in the first half of next year.


Shao Yiming, a researcher at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and an expert in the State Council's Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism Vaccine Specialty Class, once introduced that vaccines have three levels of preventive effectiveness against the new coronavirus, namely preventing infection and spreading the virus, preventing symptoms after infection, and preventing symptoms from worsening.


At present, the new crown vaccines all over the world belong to the secondary prevention in the WHO's tertiary prevention standards, that is, prevention of disease. In this case, even if the vaccine is vaccinated, there is a possibility of breaking through the infection, but the probability is low.


From the perspective of responding to the new crown virus attack, the combination of vaccines and specific drugs can form a strong line of defense against the new crown.