Pfizer vs Merck: PAXLOVID vs MOLNUPIRAVIR

 

With at-home Covid-19 testing kits beginning to arrive in Americans’ mailboxes nationwide, people who test positive for Covid and at high risk for severe illness may want to seek out two newly authorized antiviral pills that have been shown to cut the risk of hospitalization or death.

 Unlike all other FDA-authorized Covid treatments, which need to be given intravenously or by injection from a health care provider, the two antiviral pills — Pfizer's Paxlovid and Merck's molnupiravir — can be picked up at a pharmacy and taken at home.

The two easy-to-administer treatments add to the nation's Covid arsenal at a time when federal regulators have asked states to stop using certain antibody drugs because they don't work against the omicron variant, which now accounts for virtually all new cases in the United States. Pfizer and Merck have said their pills should work against the new strain.

To be sure, the process for obtaining the pills is more complex than for Covid vaccines and other treatments, and both drugs come with risk of side effects for certain groups of people.

Additionally, finding the pills won't be easy for everyone, health experts say, as they are currently in short supply in the U.S. The Department of Health and Human Services has already allocated hundreds of thousands of courses of the antivirals, but the distribution has varied by state and some state governments may have different eligibility requirements for who can receive the drugs. In some places, preference is given to the unvaccinated or those with weak immune systems who don't respond well to vaccination.

"There is very limited supply at this point and they are for very specific types of patients," said Kurt Proctor, senior vice president of strategic initiatives at the National Community Pharmacists Association. "It certainly isn't like every person who gets one of these [over-the-counter] tests and, if they test positive, should start trying to get one of these meds."

 The pills are not available to everyone.

 The FDA authorized Paxlovid for at-risk people as young as 12 with mild to moderate Covid to receive a five-day course of the medication. The agency authorized molnupiravir for at-risk adults with the illness. Molnupiravir is also limited to situations where other authorized treatments are inaccessible or not “clinically appropriate," according to the FDA.

Because of supply shortages, some states and local governments may have even narrower eligibility requirements and some people at high risk may be turned away. Additionally, unvaccinated patients may get priority when there is a limited supply under National Institutes of Health guidelines.

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Pfizer frente a MSD/Merck: comparamos las dos píldoras contra la covid

La EMA también tiene previsto dar el visto bueno en febrero a otro antiviral de administración oral, de la farmacéutica Merck, cuyo uso también fue aprobado por parte de la Administración de Medicamentos y Alimentos estadounidense (FDA por sus siglas en inglés) un día después de la píldora de Pfizer.

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