First pill to treat Covid gets approval in UK

The first pill designed to treat symptomatic Covid has been approved by the UK medicines regulator.

The tablet - molnupiravir - will be given twice a day to vulnerable patients recently diagnosed with the disease.

In clinical trials the pill, originally developed to treat flu, cut the risk of hospitalisation or death by about half.

Health secretary Sajid Javid said the treatment was a "gamechanger" for the most frail and immunosuppressed.

In a statement he said: "Today is a historic day for our country, as the UK is now the first country in the world to approve an antiviral that can be taken at home for Covid."

Molnupiravir, developed by the US drug company Merck (known as MSD in the UK) and its partner Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, is the first dedicated oral antiviral medication for Covid.

The pill targets an enzyme that the virus uses to make copies of itself, introducing errors into its genetic code. That should prevent it from multiplying, so keeping virus levels low in the body and reducing the severity of the disease.

Merck said that approach should make the treatment equally effective against new variants of the virus as it evolves in the future.

The UK regulator, the MHRA, said the drug had been authorised for use in people who have mild to moderate Covid and at least one risk factor for developing severe illness such as obesity, old age, diabetes or heart disease.

The organisation's chief executive, June Raine, described the treatment as "another therapeutic to add to our armoury against Covid-19".

"It is the world's first approved antiviral for this disease that can be taken by mouth rather than administered intravenously," she said.

"This is important, because it means it can be administered outside of a hospital setting, before Covid-19 has progressed to a severe stage."

The UK has ordered 480,000 courses of molnupiravir to be delivered by the end of the year, along with 250,000 courses of a similar experimental drug currently being developed by US drug company Pfizer.

Earlier clinical trials of molnupiravir on 775 patients who had recently caught Covid found:

The data was published in a press release and has not yet been peer-reviewed.

Trial results suggest molnupiravir needs to be taken early after symptoms develop to have an effect. An earlier study in patients who had already been hospitalised with severe Covid was halted after disappointing results.

Merck is the first company to report trial results of a pill to treat Covid, but other companies are working on similar treatments.

Its US rival Pfizer has recently started late-stage trials of two different antiviral tablets, while Swiss company Roche is working on a similar medication.