A preliminary study shows that molnupiravir, an experimental antiviral drug, significantly reduced the infectious virus in patients with COVID-19 after five days of treatment.
The drug is being developed by Ridgeback Biotherapeutics and Merck, with the companies releasing the results of the study on Saturday. Tests are ongoing and if other results show that the drug can treat patients with COVID-19 who have symptoms, it could be the first oral antiviral used to fight the disease, Wall Street Newspaper reports.
The preliminary results are from a Phase 2 trial, which studied the effect of different doses on 182 people who had reported symptoms of COVID-19 for the first time in the previous week, tested positive during the most recent four days and were not hospitalized. After five days, the tests failed to detect the infectious virus in volunteers who took molnupiravir twice a day. Among those who received placebos, the infectious virus was found in 24 percent of participants. The study also found that, after three days, the volunteers who took higher doses had lower levels of infectious virus than those who took the placebo.
Carl Dieffenbach, director of the AIDS Division at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told the daily the study is “tempting and interesting, but not exactly 100 percent complete. What we need to confirm is that there is a clinical benefit.” So far, the only antiviral that has been authorized for use in patients with COVID-19 is remdesivir, whose studies have found modest benefits in hospitalized patients by shortening their stays.
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