Coronavirus: World

Firms designing 'more potent' antiviral pills to rival Pfizer, Merck drugs

LOS ANGELES • As Merck and Pfizer prepare to report clinical trial results for experimental Covid-19 antiviral pills, their rivals are lining up with what they hope will be more potent and convenient oral treatments of their own.

Enanta Pharmaceuticals, Pardes Biosciences, Japan's Shionogi and Novartis said they have designed antivirals that specifically target the coronavirus, while aiming to avoid potential shortcomings such as the need for multiple pills per day or known safety issues.

Infectious disease experts have stressed that preventing Covid-19 through wide use of vaccines remains the best way to control the pandemic. But they said the disease is here to stay and more convenient treatments are needed.

"We need to have oral alternatives for suppression of this virus. We have people who aren't vaccinated getting sick, people whose vaccine protection is waning, and people who can't get vaccinated," said Dr Robert Schooley, an infectious diseases professor at UC San Diego School of Medicine.

Pfizer and Merck, as well as partners Atea Pharmaceuticals and Roche, have all said they could seek emergency approval for their Covid-19 antiviral pills this year.

Their rivals are at least a year behind. Pardes began an early-stage trial last month, Shionogi plans to start large-scale clinical trials by the year-end and Enanta aims to start human trials early next year.

Enanta chief executive Jay Luly has said that repurposing drugs originally developed for other viral infections is not an unreasonable approach. But it is not known how potent these drugs will be against Covid-19 or how well they can target lung tissue, where the coronavirus takes hold.

Antivirals are complex to develop because they must target the virus after it is already replicating inside human cells without damaging healthy cells.

Currently, intravenous and injected antibodies are the only approved treatments for non-hospitalised Covid-19 patients.

REUTERS

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on September 29, 2021, with the headline Firms designing 'more potent' antiviral pills to rival Pfizer, Merck drugs. Subscribe