FT Article on Antivirals & SNG - Part 128 Sep 2021 00:57
Antiviral pill: How close are we to a drug to treat Covid?
Who is working on them?
Merck’s tablet, called molnupiravir, would be taken within five days of Covid-19 symptoms emerging, twice a day for five days. It is in phase-3 trials and the company expects to have data by the end of this year. Merck has also started household trials of molnupiravir in people who do not have coronavirus but are living with someone who does.
US pharmaceutical group Pfizer is also carrying out late-stage trials of its antiviral tablet. The company is studying two antivirals — a tablet that can be taken at home and an intravenous infusion for patients suffering from more serious disease. The medicines work by blocking the activity of the Covid protease, an enzyme that the virus needs in order to replicate in the body.
An inhaled interferon treatment being produced by a UK drug discovery company, Synairgen, has also emerged as a potentially promising approach to treating the disease.
Richard Marsden, the company’s chief executive, said one of the main ways viruses evaded the immune system was “to suppress the production of interferon beta”, which plays a significant role in activating the wider immune response and preventing a virus from replicating. “All we’re doing is putting?.?.?.?this protein, that everyone makes, back into the battleground, and the battleground that matters is in the lungs,” added Marsden.
Who would receive antiviral drugs?
Recipients might include immunosuppressed people for whom Covid-19 vaccines do not work, or a defined group — such as a school, care home or football team — in which they could be used prophylactically to forestall a wider outbreak.
The trick, however, would be timing as such products needed to be given at the first sign of symptoms, said Steve Bates, chief executive of the UK’s BioIndustry Association.
Bates said he would be “unsurprised” to see at least one antiviral drug ready to be rolled out in the coming weeks, potentially under an “emergency use authorisation”, through which products yet to win full regulatory approval can be made available during a public health crisis.
But Bates, a former member of Britain’s vaccines task force, suggested mass deployment across the UK population was unlikely.
“I think of them as more specialist tools, probably used in particular groups of the population or at a particular point in an outbreak,” he added.
People may have to adjust their expectations of how transformative this category of medicines will be.
Efficacy levels might be far lower than the public had come to expect from the vaccines, Bates warned. “Because of this problem of when you administer them, it’s almost impossible to get a really good result statistically. And if you get an antiviral that works at 40 per cent, I think that will be brilliant,” he said.
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