Skip to main content

U.S. government to buy $1 billion more worth of Merck's COVID-19 pill

 


Nov 9 (Reuters) - The U.S. government will buy another $1 billion worth of the COVID-19 pill made by Merck & Co Inc (MRK.N) and partner Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, the companies said on Tuesday.

The government in June agreed to buy 1.7 million courses of molnupiravir for $1.2 billion and is now exercising options to buy 1.4 million more.

That brings the total secured courses to 3.1 million and worth $2.2 billion. Merck said the government has the right to buy 2 million more courses as part of the contract. read more

The drug has been closely watched since data last month showed that when given early in the illness it could halve the chances of dying or being hospitalized for those most at risk of developing severe COVID-19. read more

"Molnupiravir, if authorized, will be among the vaccines and medicines available to fight COVID-19 as part of our collective efforts to bring this pandemic to an end," said Frank Clyburn, president of Merck's human health business.

President Joe Biden said on Friday that the United States had also secured millions of doses of Pfizer Inc's (PFE.N) rival antiviral drug, which was shown to cut by 89% the chance of hospitalization or death for adults at risk of severe disease.

The Pfizer negotiations were for a deal similar to the one with Merck - 1.7 million courses of the treatment upfront with an additional option for 3.3 million, a senior U.S. health official said on Tuesday, confirming a New York Times report.

Pfizer Chief Executive Officer Alfred Bourla said on Friday that the company plans to sell its treatment for around the same price for high-income countries as Merck, at roughly $700 for a course of therapy. read more

Merck expects to produce 10 million courses of the treatment by the end of this year, with at least 20 million set to be manufactured in 2022.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-government-buy-14-mln-more-courses-mercks-covid-19-pill-2021-11-09/





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Can We Make A Vaccine Against Smoking?

  This segment sounds good but we need to be careful here or we end up where we started in 2021 vaccines becoming political. 
Post a Comment
Read more

Texas governor bans vaccine passports from being required in state ABC News

  Thats Right States like Texas and Florida got the Vaccine Passport Conspiracy from Del Bigtree.  https://abc7.com/politics/texas-governor-bans-vaccine-passport-requirement-in-state/10491161/ AUSTIN, Texas -- Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order Tuesday morning prohibiting state agencies or political subdivisions in Texas from creating a "vaccine passport" requirement. Conversation has grown around  vaccine passports recently as an option that can be used for travel or even eating out . They are typically described as an app with a code that verifies if someone has been vaccinated or recently tested negative for COVID-19. They're already in use in Israel, and in development in parts of Europe. But Abbott shut that down as an option in the Lone Star State with Executive Order No. GA - 35 also prohibiting "organizations receiving public funds from requiring consumers to provide documentation of vaccine status in order to receive any service or enter any place....
Post a Comment
Read more

Anti-Vax Conspiracies strike back in the USA July 2021 Original Article

 Thumbnail credit by Jeff Holiday Production In the past few weeks the anti-vax lobby has ratcheted up the ante on their lobbying efforts. The event that kicked off this new wave of anti-vax scares was the "Knock on the Door rants" according to the Washington Post on a July 9th article they cited  rants by Marjorie Taylor Greene and Laurent Boebert in a political rally that sparked the scare. "Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) got the ball rolling Tuesday by comparing the effort to “ medical brown shirts showing up at their door ordering vaccinations .” Not to be outdone, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) took to Twitter the next day to offer her own Nazi comparison, labeling the door-knockers “ needle Nazis .” If anyone should know the folly of such metaphors, it would seem to be Greene, who just three weeks prior conceded in an apology after another wayward Nazi/coronavirus comment that “ there is no comparison to the Holocaust .” And it’s worth emphasizing that there is...
Post a Comment
Read more