The world needs an easy-to-take COVID-19 treatment. Pfizer Inc.’s and Merck & Co. Inc.’s coronavirus pills may be just that. But questions remain about how well they will work in the real world, how safe they are and whether they will need to be taken in drug cocktails rather than alone.
Pfizer’s COVID-19 pill results were hailed as remarkable Friday, the drug reduced the risk of hospitalization or death by 89% in patients. It follows a successful COVID-19 pill trial from rival Merck in October and both drugmakers are now working to get regulatory authorization. That’s left even the most skeptical doctors and scientists cheering the moment as a feat for drug development and a possible turning point in the pandemic.
"Just stunning,” Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, said in a tweet about the results. He added that the "implications of effective therapeutics for ending the pandemic are very, very large.”