Pfizer signed agreement to facilitate global access to its pill against COVID-19

Pfizer signed a voluntary license agreement that should allow access to its anticovid pill beyond rich countries, once it has been licensed, and thus fight more effectively against a pandemic that continues to ravage the world.

The US pharmaceutical giant and the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP), created by Unitaid, jointly made the announcement on Tuesday.

Generic drug manufacturers “that receive sublicenses will be able to offer the new drug in association with ritonavir (used against the AIDS virus) in 95 countries, which cover about 53% of the world’s population,” said a Unitaid spokesperson, Hervé. Verhoosen, during a meeting with the UN press in Geneva.

At the beginning of November, Pfizer, which already markets one of the most effective vaccines against covid with the German group BioNTech, indicated that their oral antiviral PF-07321332 was 89% effective in preventing hospitalization or death among adults who are at high risk of developing a severe form of the disease, based on intermediate results of clinical trials.

With this agreement, Pfizer is moving along the same path as its competitor Merck, which signed a similar agreement with MPP for its own oral anticovid, molnupiravir, which also exhibits a strong efficacy rate.

These promising results have yet to be confirmed, said Esteban Burrone, MPP’s policy maker, in an interview with the AFP. But if they are validated, availability “will be a matter of months and not years,” he said.

You will not receive royalties

The agreement includes all low- and lower-middle and upper-middle-income countries in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as upper-middle income countries that have achieved this status in the last five years, Verhoosen said.

Pfizer will not receive royalties on sales in low-income countries and will waive its royalties on sales in all countries covered by the agreement as long as COVID-19 continues to be considered a public health emergency of international concern by the World Organization. Of the health.

Pfizer and other pharmaceutical groups have been accused of having favored profits, selling the COVID-19 vaccine to countries that can afford it and thus participating in increasing the inequality between rich and poor countries in access to vaccines.

Burrone said the price of the treatment is unknown at the moment. According to Doctors Without Borders, it will be about $ 700 in rich countries, similar to that of molnuvipar, and the cost will be adapted for other countries.

MSF was “discouraged” by the deal, which excludes Argentina, Brazil, China, Malaysia and Thailand, which have significant generic manufacturing capabilities.

Like molnupiravir, the Pfizer treatment, which will be marketed as Paxlovid, should be administered within 3 to 5 days of the onset of symptoms.

Although there are already treatments – mainly in the form of synthetic antibodies – they are drugs for patients who already have severe forms of the disease and are injected intravenously and therefore are complex to administer.

In contrast, a pill or tablet can be quickly prescribed to the patient, who can easily take it at home.

The Merck and Pfizer treatments, which would also have few side effects, call for ten doses over five days.

In parallel, an antidepressant that is already in the public domain, fluvoxamine, showed encouraging results in preventing severe forms of COVID-19, according to a study published in October by Brazilian researchers in the journal Lancet Global Health. (I)