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How antiviral pill molnupiravir shot ahead in the COVID drug hunt

The Merck pill, which could become the first oral antiviral COVID treatment, forces the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus to mutate itself to death.
  1. Cassandra Willyard
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The pharmaceutical firm Merck announced last week that an antiviral pill it’s developing can cut hospitalizations and deaths among people with COVID-19 by half. The results haven’t yet been peer reviewed. But if the drug candidate, molnupiravir, is authorized by regulators, it would be the first oral antiviral treatment for COVID-19. By contrast, the other currently authorized drugs must be delivered intravenously or injected.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02783-1

Updates & Corrections

  • Clarification 09 October 2021: This story was updated to clarify that the two Indian drugmakers testing a generic version of molnupiravir did so independently of Merck, and to add comments from Merck indicating that moderate cases of COVID-19 in India are defined as being more severe than those in the United States.

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