Pfizer Anti-Covid Pill may be generic for worldwide access

Pfizer has signed a voluntary license agreement that must allow access to your anti-Covid tablet. The announcement was made this Tuesday (16).

Generic drug manufacturers “who receive sublicenses will be able to offer the new drug in combination with ritonavir (used against the AIDS virus) in 95 countries, which cover nearly 53% of the world’s population,” said a spokesman for Unitaid, which created it. Medicines Patent Pool (MPP), in an interview in Geneva.

Earlier this month, Pfizer, which already markets one of the most effective vaccines against the vaccine with the German group BioNTech, announced that its oral antiviral PF-07321332 is 89% effective in preventing hospitalization or death among adults at risk of developing a severe form of the disease, according to interim clinical trial results.

With the agreement, Pfizer is moving in the same area as rival Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD), which announced a similar pact with MPP for its oral anticovid drug, molnupiravir, which also has a high efficacy rate.

Promising results have yet to be confirmed, said Esteban Burrone, MPP’s director of policymaking, in an interview with AFP. But if it does, availability “will be a matter of months, not years,” he said.