The full results of a UK clinical trial show that the pill did not reduce the risks of death or hospitalisation.
The paper published in The Lancet confirmed that molnupiravir did not prevent the most severe disease among the 25,700 participants.
The researchers who led the Panoramic trial put more emphasis on the positives at a media briefing on Thursday.
The treatment may have other benefits, such as a faster recovery time and reduced follow-up with health services. The duration of symptoms can be cut in half by molnupiravir.
He said that this could help ease the burden on UK health services through the treatment of selected patients at home during times of high disease burden.
While molnupiravir was originally found to work well to reduce hospitalisation in patients with Covid, this was not the case for unvaccinated patients. The vaccine protection is so strong that there is no obvious benefit from the drug in terms of further reducing hospitalisation and deaths. Symptom duration is less than it used to be.
The virus that causes Covid is caused by an overload of lethal Mutations in sars-Cov-2. Judith Breuer of University College London, who led a section of the Panoramic trial, said that the concern that this "error catastrophe" might accelerate the evolution of harmful variant was not justified. She said that any virus that persists after treatment is impossible to cure.
The costs and benefits of molnupiravir treatment will be evaluated by the researchers. The Covid treatment for the general population could not be justified at a cost of several hundred pounds per patient.
The findings from Panoramic are encouraged by the company. There is an urgent need for global access to lagevrio for the treatment of Covid-19 in high-risk patients.
In its third-quarter results, presented at the end of October, the company said it expected to sell between $5.2 billion and $5.4 billion of Lagevrio in 2022.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
