The UK will start to launch Merck’s Monelavir Coronavirus disease Susan Hopkins, chief medical adviser to the UK Health Security Agency, said on Sunday that antiviral pills were obtained through drug trials later this month.
Last week, the United Kingdom became the first country in the world to approve a game-changing COVID-19 antiviral pill jointly developed by Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics.
The government said in October that it had received 480,000 courses of Merck’s drugs and 250,000 courses of antiviral pills developed by Pfizer.
When asked about the approval of molnupiravir, Hopkins told BBC TV: “This is good news. It will be promoted through drug trials at the end of this month/early December.”
Hopkins said that all the trials so far have been done in unvaccinated people, so this will help understand how it works in a wider vaccinated population.
“The new Pfizer drug may not be approved until sometime in the New Year,” she added. “It may take a few more months.”
(Reporting by Kelly McClellan, editing by Gareth Jones)
