Tablets to treat COVID-19 to hit the market soon
An antiviral drug, essentially an influenza medicine, named molnupiravir has been showing a big success rate in clinical trials being held across India. The third phase of trials for this cheap but very effective drug is now underway also in Kolkata.
A new treatment for COVID-19, in the form of antiviral tablets, is expected to be approved in India soon. Third phase trials are taking place across the country, including in Kolkata. The first and second phases, held in other cities, were highly successful, according to people in the know.
The tablet, called molnupiravir, is, in essence, an antiviral drug meant to treat influenza, developed jointly by the US division of German pharmaceutical MNC Merck and US-based Ridgeback Biotherapeutics. In India, it is being manufactured by Dr Reddy’s Laboratories.
The trials in Kolkata are underway among 60 COVID-19-positive patients at three hospitals—the state government-run Nil Ratan Sircar Medical College and Hospital, and the private Ruby General Hospital and Kasturi Das Memorial Superspeciality Hospital.
The treatment regimen consists of 10 tablets, with two tablets to be taken per day for five days. Each tablet is 400 mg, so a day’s dosage consists of 800 mg of molnupiravir.
According to sources, 25 per cent of the 60 patients in the trial tested negative for the infection within a week of starting the treatment. The rest are recovering at a rapid rate.
According to the clinical trial facilitator for government and private hospitals in Bengal, Snehendu Konar, oxygen saturation levels of many of the patients in the trial have been observed to have shown remarkable improvement quite rapidly; for example, rising from 78 to 88 after just a few days of taking the drug.
Besides the extremely positive outcomes as mentioned above, according to doctors, unlike remdesivir, the medicine which has been commonly used for serious COVID-19 patients, molnupiravir is devoid of side effects.
Another big advantage that this new drug would have with respect to remdesivir is that its price would be quite cheap—about as much as that of any of the commonly available antacids.
