LONDON, Jan 25 (Reuters) - Britain said on Tuesday it needed
to recruit 6,000 more people onto a trial of Merck's
COVID-19 antiviral pill molnupiravir to inform how the drug can
be rolled out more widely.
Britain's MHRA medicine regulator approved the pill, made by
Merck and Ridgeback Therapeutics, in November, and the
government launched a national study to establish the best way
to use the drug.
The health ministry said that while 4,500 trial participants
had signed up, thousands more were needed to gather the data
needed.
The study, called Panoramic, was launched to assess how the
antiviral should be used in a largely vaccinated population,
given it was assessed in clinical trials on unvaccinated people.
"Antivirals are a hugely important addition to our response
to COVID-19," said Eddie Gray, chair of the UK's Antivirals
Taskforce.
"Getting people enrolled onto this study is vital, not just
in protecting the most vulnerable now, but in ensuring we can
deploy these medicines more widely as soon as possible."
Prime Minister Boris Johnson last week said he would ditch
mask mandates, work from home guidance and compulsory COVID
passes in England, citing Britain's purchase of antivirals as
well as the booster rollout and the lower severity of the
Omicron coronavirus variant.
The health ministry said it had bought 2.23 million courses
of the Merck drug, as well as 2.75 million courses of an
antiviral pill developed by Pfizer Inc which it has not
yet started to deploy.
Merck's pill was shown to reduce hospitalisations and deaths
by around 30% in a clinical trial of high-risk individuals early
in the course of the illness.
The government said that over-50s and those with an
underlying medical condition who had tested positive for
COVID-19 on a PCR test or who were unwell with COVID symptoms in
the last five days could sign up for the Panoramic study.
(Reporting by Alistair Smout
Editing by Mark Potter)