Pfizer Says Its Experimental Pill Reduces Risk Of Hospitalization, Death From COVID-19
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Pfizer hopes that treating COVID at home will happen soon. The company announced Friday it has a new pill that prevents serious complications.
This is an anti-viral treatment and not the first one.
Pfizer says this pill could be a game-changer but the research still hasn't been independently reviewed.
The experimental anti-viral treatment is designed to stop the COVID virus from multiplying.
Initial results from a new pill that prevents serious complications and not only that, people exposed to COVID or with mild symptoms can be treated at home.
"It's just extraordinary," Pfizer Dr. Mikael Dolsten said. "I feel as a physician, so positive, so optimistic, so pleased that we can share this data."
Pfizer's research has not yet been peer-reviewed or published but the company will seek FDA authorization.
"The therapy would be another tool in our toolbox to protect people from worst outcomes of COVID," President Joe Biden said.
All COVID therapies currently authorized in the United States require an IV or injection.
Pfizer's competitor Merck also has an antiviral pill which is under review by the FDA. The United Kingdom just became the first country to OK it.
"To have a drug like this, to have an anti-viral that's potent, that's able to be taken orally is a very important moment and does mark a milestone," Pharmacology professor at the University of Liverpool, Saye Khoo, said.
Merck's drug was originally designed to treat the flu but researchers found it produces errors in COVID-19's genetic code, which stops the virus from replicating.
Pfizer's pill works the same way but they both treat and don't prevent COVID.
"It's important to remember we need to prevent infection, not wait to treat them. Vaccination remains the best way to do that," Biden said.
Remdesivir is currently the only antiviral approved for COVID-19 treatment in the United States.
If the two new pills are cleared by the FDA, they'd be the first at-home treatments.
