Drugmaker Pfizer has signed a deal with a UN-backed group to allow other manufacturers to manufacture its investigational COVID-19 drug, a move that could make treatment available to more than half of the population. world population.
In a statement on Tuesday, Pfizer announced that it would license the antiviral tablet to the Geneva-based Medicines Patent Pool, which would allow generic drug manufacturers to produce the tablet for use in 95 countries, accounting for around 53%. of the world’s population.
The deal excludes some large countries that have suffered devastating coronavirus outbreaks. For example, while a Brazilian pharmaceutical company could obtain a license to make the tablet and export it to other countries, the drug could not be made generically for use in Brazil.
Health officials have nonetheless said that the fact that the deal was reached even before Pfizer’s drug was cleared somewhere could help end the pandemic faster.
“It is quite significant that we are able to provide access to a drug which appears to be effective and which has just been developed to more than 4 billion people,” said Esteban Burrone, policy manager of the Medicines Patent Pool.
He estimated that other drug makers could start producing the tablet within a few months.
Under the terms of the agreement, Pfizer will not collect royalties on sales in low-income countries and will waive royalties on sales in all countries covered by the agreement as long as COVID-19 remains a public health emergency. .
Earlier this month, Pfizer said its pill reduced the risk of hospitalization and death by nearly 90% in people with mild to moderate coronavirus infections. Independent experts have recommended stopping the study of the company on the basis of its promising results.
Pfizer said it would ask the United States Food and Drug Administration and other regulators to clear the drug as soon as possible.
Since the pandemic erupted last year, researchers around the world have been rushing to develop a drug to treat COVID-19 that can be taken at home easily to relieve symptoms, speed recovery, and prevent people from dying. go to the hospital. Currently, most treatments for COVID-19 must be given intravenously or by injection.
Britain cleared Merck’s anti-COVID-19 pill earlier this month, and it is awaiting approval elsewhere. In a similar deal with the Medicines Patent Pool announced in October, Merck agreed to let other drug makers offer its pill, molnupiravir, in 105 poorer countries.
Doctors Without Borders said it was “disheartened” that the Pfizer deal does not make the drug available worldwide, noting that the deal announced on Tuesday excludes countries like China, Argentina and Thailand.
“The world now knows that access to medical tools to fight COVID-19 must be guaranteed for everyone, everywhere, if we are truly to control this pandemic,” said Yuanqiong Hu, senior legal policy adviser at Doctors. without limits.
The decisions of Pfizer and Merck to share their drug patents contrast starkly with the refusal of Pfizer and other vaccine makers to release their vaccine formulations for wider production.
Less than 1% of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccines went to poorer countries.