– The best news since the beginning of the pandemic.
Right from the start of the pandemic, FHI has said that there are two things that can really change the development.
- Vaccine
- Effective treatment
We have had a vaccine for a year, but the effect of this has not been as good as one would have hoped. Norway is now facing the biggest wave of infection through the pandemic, and country after country in Europe is introducing new infection control measures.
On the treatment side, however, it has been quite quiet. With the exception of a few medications for the very sickest patients, not much has happened.
Admittedly, it has have been approved so-called antibody drugs, but the production of these is very limited – and they require hospital treatment to be given.
Also read: Supermedicine can be a cure for corona
Three new medications can change this in total
But recently, some of the world’s largest drug manufacturers have come up with uplifting results.
Pfizer could tell that they had made an antiviral drug called Paxlovid which according to phase 3 studies reduced the risk of hospitalization by 89 percent if taken within three days after the onset of symptoms.
The medicine is in tablet form, and there is therefore no need for hospital supervision.
The results came about a month after Merck was able to tell that they had developed another type of antiviral drug called molnupiravir. In the study, it was given to unvaccinated people in risk groups. The results show that the risk of hospitalization was halved, and no one who received the medicine died.
– This must be the best treatment news we have received since the start of the pandemic. Previous successes, such as dexamethasone, have helped people when they have arrived at the hospital, but now we are talking about preventing them from ending up in the hospital in the first place, writes chemist and commentator Derek Lowe in the journal Science.
– An obvious question is whether these two drugs can be combined in a cocktail, as we have seen for other viral diseases such as HIV and Hepatitis C. They have some of the most effective antiviral treatments ever discovered, and it does not seem to be some reason why it should be different in this situation, he writes.
Both medicines are now seeking urgent approval, and European EMA has expressed that it can go fast.
He also points out that surprisingly good results have emerged for the use of another standard medicine, fluvoxamine. Results published in reputable The Lancet showed that the medicine actually used for depression and other mental disorders, showed that the risk of hospitalization and death was reduced by around 1/3.
Both Pfizer and Merck have done very well on the stock exchange after their respective news.
NIPH is cautiously positive
The online newspaper has for some time tried to get answers on how they evaluate the new medicines, but has not received an answer. In its new risk report, on the other hand, the institute mentions in cautiously positive terms:
– Press releases from Pfizer and Merck indicate that two new drugs can reduce the risk of hospitalization by up to 90 percent in unvaccinated at-risk patients who start treatment early in the course of the disease. The medicines will probably be approved by the European Medicines Agency and available in Norway within a few months. It is unknown how good the effect will be in the vaccinated.
– In the first instance, such treatment will probably be relevant for elderly patients and certain groups with defined diseases / conditions that increase the risk of serious disease and death of covid-19 with confirmed covid-19. These can have a risk of 5-10 percent for hospitalization and make up at least a third of those admitted. The treatment can therefore have a significant impact on the epidemic’s disease burden, writes FHI.
Several countries have already ordered large quantities
The news about the new medicines has led a number of countries to order large quantities already, provided that they are approved.
Among other things, Japan has ordered 1.6 million doses from Merck, while the United States has ordered 3.1 million doses. The order for Pfizer’s medicine is even bigger:
Norway is not one of the countries that has a direct negotiation, and instead we lean on the EU:
– European cooperation and pan-European procurement are Norway’s main strategy for access to such medicines. Approval processes and procurement cooperation are underway at European level in which Norway participates, writes State Secretary Ole Henrik Krat Bjørkholt in an e-mail to Nettavisen.
Will probably not be scarcity
Unlike vaccine production, it appears that the production and distribution of these new drugs will not face the same capacity problems as for vaccines.
“The production of these products is much simpler than what is needed for mRNA vaccines, and there is no reason why the process cannot be done in any competent pharmaceutical company,” writes Lowe.
Merck has already entered into agreements with manufacturers in developing countries for the production of their pill, and a company in Bangladesh is already underway. Pfizer has also indicated that they will do something similar.
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