Presented by the government as a key tool against the coronavirus, the pill produced by the Merck laboratory does not convince the health authorities.
CORONAVIRUS – ”There is a game changer, and that’s Molnupiravir. ” Here is what the Minister of Health Olivier Véran said on October 26 during a hearing in the Senate about the supposedly miracle pill to fight against covid-19. An oral treatment capable therefore of “changing the game”, to translate the minister. Except that there is a catch …
While France very quickly positioned itself for acquire 50,000 doses, clinical trials have shown disappointing. Indeed, according to figures put forward by the American laboratory Merck, at the origin of the treatment, the drug only reduces the risk of hospitalization for people at risk with Covid by 30% after taking the drug.
In detail, according to the trial conducted by the company, 9.7% of the 700 people in the placebo group had been hospitalized, against 6.8% in the group treated with the Lagevrio pill.
Unsatisfactory results
A first setback to which was added, this Friday, December 10, a second with the refusal of the High Authority of Health to approve this treatment.
To justify itself, the court gives several arguments, including the overall relative effectiveness of Molnupiravir. “The results put forward by the laboratory are poorer than those of the available treatments: a 30% reduction in the risk of progression to severe forms of the disease while the efficacy for the monoclonal antibodies casirivimab-imdevimab is around 80% on this same criterion ”, writes the HAS in its press release.
And the authority to add that the “important discordance” between the first and the final results influenced it in its decision.
La variable Omicron
Elements which make say to the High Authority that an authorization of Molnupiravir “would risk to induce a loss of opportunity for the patients, who would not see themselves treated by an available and more effective treatment”, in this case the Ronapreve developed by Regeneron.
Another argument against the Merck pill advanced by the Haute Autorité de Santé, the uncertainty linked to the variant Omicron. “The National Medicines Safety Agency concluded, considering the current epidemic context of the 5th wave of covid-19 and the potential impact of the Omicron variant on existing treatment options, that the efficacy and safety of this medicine were presumed. in a restricted indication compared to that claimed by the laboratory ”, we can read.
Clearly, the tests carried out in the laboratory outside the context of the emergence of the variant were not necessarily replicable in the real world. This is why the HAS “considers that this drug does not meet the criteria for obtaining early access authorization”.
See also on the HuffPost: Why France has ordered 50,000 doses of anti-Covid pills
This article originally appeared on The HuffPost and has been updated.
VIDEO – Speech by Olivier Véran: what is molnupiravir, this drug on which he “places a lot of hope”?
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