Pfizer’s deal with a United Nations group to let other companies make its new antiviral pill as a generic drug has been met with mixed reactions. At the end of the summer, protesters at Pfizer’s world headquarters in New York urged the drugmaker to widely share patents for its COVID-19 vaccine.
Bruce Gilbert / AP
hide captions
switch captions
Bruce Gilbert / AP
Pfizer’s deal with a United Nations group to let other companies make its new antiviral pill as a generic drug has been met with mixed reactions. At the end of the summer, protesters at Pfizer’s world headquarters in New York urged the drugmaker to widely share patents for its COVID-19 vaccine.
Bruce Gilbert / AP
Pfizer has signed a licensing agreement to allow dozens of lower-income countries to benefit from generic versions of its new COVID-19 pill. The deal covers 95 countries, but it omits some of the hard-hit countries.
Antiviral drugs are not yet available – Pfizer said earlier this month that the drug, called Paxlovid, has shown promising results in clinical trials and that it will be federally authorized for emergency use in the United States
Effective COVID-19 drugs are seen as potential game-changers during the pandemic, because they can be used at home early after infection, reducing both the number of coronaviruses and the ability to spread it to others. one patient.
Charles Gore, executive director of the United Nations-backed Medicines Patent Organization, said in a joint statement with Pfizer.
License Agreement applies to 95 countries, about 53% of the world’s population, according to Pfizer and MPP.
Generic drugs will be legal in many countries classified as low income, lower middle income or higher middle income territories. But it won’t be available in Russia, Turkey, Brazil or Romania – all of which are in the top 10 countries in the world for the number of COVID-19 cases and are also considered upper middle-income countries. by World Bank.
While the list of approved countries includes many countries in Latin America, neither Mexico nor Argentina are among them.
In response to the deal, Doctors Without Borders warned that its limits meant many countries and that, if expanded, millions of people would not benefit. It also notes that the drug is expected to cost around $700 per course of treatment in high-income countries, with lower amounts set for lower-income countries.
Yuanqiong Hu, senior legal policy advisor for MSF’s Access Campaign, said in a statement sent to NPR: “We are pleased to see another limited voluntary license during this pandemic while we continue to do so. Cases continue to increase in many countries around the world.
Pfizer oral antiretroviral tablets are supported by the concomitant administration of a low dose of ritonavir, a drug used in HIV/AIDS regimens. Ritonavir helps protease inhibitors like the drug Pfizer stay longer in the human body, making them more effective at fighting viruses.
Noting that the patent for ritonavir has lapsed and that the new drug Pfizer remains unpatented, Doctors Without Borders is calling on drug manufacturers in the countries excluded from the product discovery agreement. generic drug production.
“The world already knows that access to COVID-19 medical tools needs to be guaranteed for everyone, everywhere if we really want to control this pandemic,” said Hu.
