A recent article published in medRxiv reported the results of a Phase 2a trial evaluating the safety, tolerability, and antiviral efficacy of molnupiravir in the treatment of coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19).

This study included 202 outpatients with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection and symptom onset within seven days. Subjects received either 200 mg molnupiravir or placebo (ratio 1:1); or molnupiravir – 400 or 800 mg, or placebo (ratio 3:1)—twice daily for 5 days.

The results showed that virus isolation was significantly lower in patients who were given 800 mg molnupiravir (1.9%) comared to placebo (16.7%) at day-3. At day-5, virus was not isolated from any participants receiving 400 or 800 mg molnupiravir, whereas the virus isolation with placebo was 11.1%.

Furthermore, 800 mg molnupiravir rendered decreased time to viral RNA clearance was decreased and a greater proportion overall achieved clearance than placebo. The drug was generally well tolerated with equivalent adverse events across all groups.

Molnupiravir is the first oral, direct-acting antiviral that confers high efficacy towards reducing nasopharyngeal SARS-CoV-2 viral load and viral RNA with a favorable safety and tolerability profile.

Source: medRxiv. 2021 Jun 17;2021.06.17.21258639. doi: 10.1101/2021.06.17.21258639.