New Therapeutic For COVID
LadyofProcrastination, CC BY-SA 2.0
This is potentially very good news:
Merck & Co Inc’s (MRK.N) experimental oral drug for COVID-19, molnupiravir, reduced by around 50% the chance of hospitalization or death for patients at risk of severe disease, according to interim clinical trial results announced on Friday.
Merck and partner Ridgeback Biotherapeutics plan to seek U.S. emergency use authorization for the pill as soon as possible, and to submit applications to regulatory agencies worldwide. Due to the positive results, the Phase 3 trial is being stopped early at the recommendation of outside monitors.
That last bit is particularly stunning. Off the top my head, I can only think of one other drug where the Phase 3 trials were stopped because the drug was so effective, they decided it was unethical to give people a placebo: AZT as a treatment for AIDS. The early end to the phase 3 trial is happening because, unlike previously touted therapeutics like Ivermectin and Hydroxochloroquine, this one appears to actually work:
A planned interim analysis of 775 patients in Merck’s study found that 7.3% of those given molnupiravir were either hospitalized or had died by 29 days after treatment, compared with 14.1% of placebo patients. There were no deaths in the molnupiravir group, but there were eight deaths of placebo patients.
If these results are confirmed, this gives us three treatments — dexamethasone, monoclonal antibodies and this anti-viral — that have been clinically proven to dramatically reduce the chance of death and serious illness from COVID-19. And this one appears to be equally effective against the Delta variant.
Now, I will repeat what I said about monoclonal antibodies. This is not a substitute for vaccines. It does not prevent transmission or spread. It is less effective in preventing sickness and death. Because the virus interact with it directly, there is always the possibility of developed resistance. A full course costs $700, as opposed to $20-40 for vaccination. The Phase III trial — which involved only about a 50th of the people the Pfizer vaccine alone involved — may not be large enough to identify rare side effects. And Merck’s initial authorization is for 1.7 million courses, enough for about two weeks at our current infection rate.
There is also this: because the pill attacks the virus on a genetic level, they don’t want pregnant women to take it. They also want men or women taking it to use contraception or abstain from sex. This is as opposed to the vaccine, which the CDC is strongly encouraging pregnant women to take because pregnancy is a significant risk for COVID complications.
But, if confirmed, the combination of vaccines, this new drug, monoclonal antibodies and dexamethasone will drastically slash the toll that COVID-19 is taking on us. To use the football analogy I used for monoclonal antibodies: if vaccines are the defensive line and monoclonal antibodies are the defensive backs, this is like signing a huge hulking linebacker with a killer attitude and blazing speed. And, once again, the technology developed will have profound implications beyond COVID-19, including against future pandemics.
This is great news to wake up to today. Know hope.
I predict MAGAs will hate it; “genetic level” will be used to demonize it as Big Pharma committing genocide against the white race.Report
It’s hard to predict the way they will twitch. They’ve been very positive on monoclonal antibodies.Report
“i’m gonna risk death or life-long illness to pay 700 dollars a dose for something my own body would create with a free vaccine! TO OWN THE LIBS!”
Doubly ironic is if they sneer about “Experimental vaccines” while using experimental monoclonal antibodies. Possibly while chugging horse paste.
(Although to be fair, horse paste is last month. We’re on “natural immunity is better” despite it, you know, not being. For starters, to acquire natural immunity one has to get COVID. Secondly, a full third of those who get COVID fail to develop antibodies anyways. And lastly, the immune response ISN’T as strong if you get one, because a case of COVID won’t get you near the simulated viral load of a vaccine, and also you’re sick the whole freaking time)Report
Yep. Monoclonal antibodies — under an EUA. Presumably this new treatment — under an EUA. But oh, hell no to that vaccine that’s fully licensed.Report
I love the “the vaccine is made from dead babies” objection.
If you’re gonna stretch so far as to include 40 year old immortalized cell lines as “dead babies”, I’ve got some real bad news about monoclonal antibodies. (They used the same cell lines for testing and development, which makes them exactly the same as a vaccine).
Still, I cannot fathom the stupidity of “I’m gonna get me a good case of the COVID and that’ll be BETTER than the vaccine!”. (Pro-tip, if you’re forced to use monoclonal antibodies or, at a guess, this new treatment to avoid dying — your iong term immune response will be even weaker. So what’ll happen is your dumb self will get COVID, panic like Joe Rogan, shotgun horse paste and regeneron and zinc — and end up ripe for reinfection because god knows you won’t get vaccinated three months later)
You won’t, it won’t, and it’ll be — at best — a highly unpleasant few weeks of illness that’ll, again, give you less protection than a free vaccine.Report
I’ve seen some threads of people talking about this kind of thing. Some people are saying if they charge anything for this they won’t trust it since they don’t know if it really works. There are so many hoops some people are putting up to never ever trust anything.Report
The initial response, at least on Twitter, is “It’s rebranded ivermectin that they charge a lot more for. I’m not falling for that!”Report
Stock market response seems weird to me, if the reported numbers hold up. Bump up the price because of a drug the manufacturer hopes to produce 1.7M courses of treatment that are 50% effective over the next three months. Punish the vaccine makers who are cranking out a million doses a day.Report
50% for risk of death or severe hospitalization.
Ideal for breakthrough cases in the elderly, but I’m sure the horse paste eaters will decide it’s a cure and everything is fine now.
I mean fuck the other 50%, for starters, I guess. And then fuck the long-term health problems a “not severe enough to hospitalize you” case can do. And fuck the medical system, which will still be overloaded with the horse paste set.
50% ain’t enough to cut that down.Report
“A planned interim analysis of 775 patients in Merck’s study found that 7.3% of those given molnupiravir were either hospitalized or had died by 29 days after treatment, compared with 14.1% of placebo patients. There were no deaths in the molnupiravir group, but there were eight deaths of placebo patients.”
Gonna try to do some math…
Assuming the groups were of equal size, that would indicate 28 hospitalized or dead with the meds and 54 hospitalized or dead without.
8 deaths among the placebo, zero among the medicated.
So, 28 hospitalized vs 46 hospitalized.
8 dead vs 0 dead.
Let’s fucking do this.Report
If the vaccine companies had shown up with studies that small and results that poor asking for an EUA, the FDA would have laughed them out of the office. Pfizer and Moderna are delivering something over a million doses a day. We’d save a whole lot more lives if we lined up the 80M or so Americans refusing to get vaccinated and forced it on them. We’d be done by mid-December, likely before Merck can get an EUA.Report
I’m 110% behind vaccination. Got my booster this week and will stick the kids as soon as allowed.
But a treatment is hugely valuable also. Let’s do it all.Report
It’s a shame they didn’t have a larger study, so we could see how strong the protection against death is. 8 vs. 0 gives us much less information than 100 vs. whatever does.Report