Pharma co to share its Covid pill formula with poor countries

NEW YORK: Pharmaceutical company Merck has granted a royalty-free license for its promising COVID-19 pill to a United Nations-backed nonprofit organisation in a deal that would allow the drug to be manufactured and sold cheaply in the poorest nations, where vaccines for the coronavirus are in devastatingly short supply, reports foreign media.

The agreement with the Medicines Patent Pool, an organisation that works to make medical treatment and technologies globally accessible, will allow companies in 105 countries, mostly in Africa and Asia, to sub-license the formulation for the antiviral pill, called molnupiravir, and begin making it.

Merck reported this month that the drug halved the rate of hospitalisation and deaths in high-risk COVID patients in a large clinical trial. Affluent nations, including the United States, have rushed to negotiate deals to buy the drug, tying up large portions of the supply even before it has been approved by regulators and raising concerns that poor countries would be shut out of access to the medicine, much as they have been for vaccines. Treatment-access advocates welcomed the new deal, which was announced on Wednesday morning, calling it an unusual step for a major Western pharmaceutical company.