On Tuesday, Pfizer said that its experimental pill to treat COVID-19 seems to be effective against the omicron variant. The drug was also potent against the omicron variant as was observed from separate laboratory testing. Pfizer tested the antiviral drug against a man-made version of a key protein that omicron uses to reproduce itself. Pfizer, in a full study comprising of 2,250-person study, showed that the pill reduced combined hospitalizations and deaths by about 89% among high-risk adults when taken shortly after initial COVID-19 symptoms. 

A study for the efficacy of the pill in lower-risk adults as also being conducted by Pfizer, but mixed data was reported for that group on Tuesday. Pfizer’s interim results said that the pill failed to meet its main study goal of providing relief from COVID-19 for four days during or after treatment, but was successful in reducing hospitalizations by about 70% among that group, which included otherwise healthy unvaccinated adults and vaccinated adults with one or more health issues. The drug reduced hospitalizations to less than 1% of patients. In both the studies, there was a 10-fold decrease in virus levels compared with those on placebo among adults.

Recommending Pfizer’s work, an independent board of medical experts advised to continue the study to get the full results before proceeding further with regulators. The Food and Drug Administration is expected to soon discuss whether to authorize Pfizer’s pill and a competing pill from Merck. 

President Joe Biden called the Pfizer’s drug as another potentially powerful tool to fight against the virus and the U.S. government has agreed to purchase enough of Pfizer’s drug to treat 10 million people and enough of Merck’s pill to treat 3 million people.

Rochelle Walensky, the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention requested people to get vaccinated and take a booster dose to remain protected from the virus. If Pfizer’s pill gets the authorized by the FDA it would be another great tool, but diagnosing people early was necessary.

Source: ET Healthworld