Merck’s COVID pill, Molnupiravir, initially heralded by public-health officials as a game-changer for COVID-19 treatment has a lower efficacy level than initially reported, full clinical-trial data has revealed.
According to the report published by Nature, the results released ahead of the advisory committee meeting, showed that the antiviral, which was developed by the pharmaceutical firm Merck, based in Kenilworth, New Jersey, and the biotechnology company Ridgeback Biotherapeutics in Miami, Florida, decreased the risk of hospitalisation from COVID-19 by 30 per cent — down from a 50 per cent reduction observed early in the trial.
In the first group, participants’ rate of hospitalisation or death dropped by half if they took Molnupiravir rather than a placebo. But in the second group, there was almost no difference in outcome for those on the antiviral compared with those on the placebo. According to Sankar Swaminathan, the division chief for infectious diseases at the University of Utah Health in Salt Lake City, it’s also possible that differences between the trial groups’ demographics or locations might have affected which participants were hospitalised or the quality of care they received. Swaminathan is a member of the FDA advisory committee that reviewed molnupiravir.