Pfizer‘s experimental oral drug to treat Covid-19 at the first signal of sickness could be available by the end of the 12 months, CEO Albert Bourla advised CNBC on Tuesday.
The firm, which developed the first approved Covid-19 vaccine in the U.S. with German drugmaker BioNTech, began in March an early-stage scientific trial testing a new antiviral remedy for Covid. The drug is a component of a category of medicines known as protease inhibitors and works by inhibiting an enzyme that the virus wants to replicate in human cells.
Protease inhibitors are used to treat different viral pathogens equivalent to HIV and hepatitis C.
If scientific trials go nicely and the Food and Drug Administration approves it, the drug could be distributed throughout the U.S. by the end of the 12 months, Bourla advised CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
Health consultants say the drug, taken by mouth, could be a gamechanger as a result of folks newly contaminated with the virus could use it outdoors of hospitals. Researchers hope the remedy will hold the illness from progressing and stop hospital journeys.
In addition to the drug, Pfizer continues to be testing its vaccine in 6-month to 11-year-old kids. Vaccinating kids is essential to ending the pandemic, public well being officers and infectious illness consultants say.
Earlier this month, the firm requested the FDA to increase its vaccine authorization to adolescents ages 12 to 15 after the shot was found to be 100% effective in a study.
Bourla advised CNBC on Tuesday he’s “very optimistic” that the FDA will approve the use of the shot in adolescents.