Good news about Covid treatments

[chiguirre]

Pfizer announced an early end to its trial of Paxlovid, its Covid treatment drug. The independent monitoring committee decided that it would be unethical to withhold treatment from the control group given the pill's 89% success rate in preventing Covid hospitalizations and deaths among high-risk patients. That's even better than Molnupiravir, Merck's anti-Covid pill that uses a different mechanism and had a 50% reduction in hospitalizations and deaths.

In other good news, Merck's drug cleared Britain's regulators and will begin being used in high-risk patients this week. It's expected to be taken up by the FDA's advisory committee after Thanksgiving so we shouldn't be too far behind in getting it approved. Paxlovid seems to be even better but it will take longer to come to market.

There aren't any studies yet about using these drugs in combination or with monoclonal antibodies, so there is a possibility that they might work even better together. We might be out of the Covid woods soon, especially when they license these meds to low cost producers to serve developing countries. That looks likely in 2022 unless something really untoward happens (after 2020 and 2021, that's not a bet I'd take.)

[Corraleno]

And the reports of adverse effects were actually lower in the treatment group than the placebo group, so it seems remarkably safe as well as effective. This drug has been in development since the original SARS epidemic, so hopefully the people who (mistakenly) believe the vaccines were too "rushed" may be more amenable to this (even though it's still "big pharma"). 

[KSera]

8 hours ago, chiguirre said:

We might be out of the Covid woods soon, especially when they license these meds to low cost producers to serve developing countries. That looks likely in 2022 unless something really untoward happens

This would be amazing to be able to get in high volume to developing nations. There isn't going to be enough of it from Pfizer as long as we're having the number of Covid cases we do now--they said only 180,000 courses this year, but as many as 50 million next year. Hopefully they will start testing it in more populations, since the initial studies were in older, higher risk populations (who are the ones who need it most, so it's awesome it works so well in them, but I'd like to know also how it work in younger, healthier people too).

[catz]

This is truly amazing, definitely potential game changer!  

One thing is I think it needs to be over the counter, or everyone who tests positive who is over 40 or checks they have a condition should automatically get a prescription.  I would hate for this to become another case of the haves and have nots like the infusion treatments.  

[Corraleno]

3 hours ago, Corraleno said:

And the reports of adverse effects were actually lower in the treatment group than the placebo group, so it seems remarkably safe as well as effective. This drug has been in development since the original SARS epidemic, so hopefully the people who (mistakenly) believe the vaccines were too "rushed" may be more amenable to this (even though it's still "big pharma"). 

Apparently that was too much to hope for.   I'm already seeing  comments on FB running about 10 to 1 against it, with the same arguments that are being used against vaccines: it's "experimental," I'm not a lab rat, big pharma is evil, I have an immune system, ivermectin is cheaper and safer, only brainwashed sheep would take that sh*t, etc. <sigh>

[Faith-manor]

14 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

Apparently that was too much to hope for.   I'm already seeing  comments on FB running about 10 to 1 against it, with the same arguments that are being used against vaccines: it's "experimental," I'm not a lab rat, big pharma is evil, I have an immune system, ivermectin is cheaper and safer, only brainwashed sheep would take that sh*t, etc. <sigh>

Seeing the same thing, and some of the a running out to TSC to grab more ivermectin. Our local one is now saying if you don't already have a farm account with them, you cannot buy the drug, and if you want to open an account you have to provide proof of actually owning a farm and livestock. So.damn.stupid.

We may need a new John Hopkins death counter, " Deaths from horse wormer".

 

[Teaching3bears]

Is this an antiviral medication?

[rebcoola]

1 hour ago, Corraleno said:

Apparently that was too much to hope for.   I'm already seeing  comments on FB running about 10 to 1 against it, with the same arguments that are being used against vaccines: it's "experimental," I'm not a lab rat, big pharma is evil, I have an immune system, ivermectin is cheaper and safer, only brainwashed sheep would take that sh*t, etc. <sigh>

I've also seen more posts about it being ivermectin with one new ingredient so "they" can sell it for $900 a pill.

[BeachGal]

1 hour ago, Teaching3bears said:

Is this an antiviral medication?

Yes, it is. It's called Paxlovid.

Vaccinations are still the best way to prevent getting Covid but to see that anti-virals are working is wonderful news.