The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Wednesday granted emergency use authorization to Pfizer’s COVID-19 treatment pill.
The pill, Paxlovid, is taken twice per day for five days in combination with a second medicine called ritonavir, classified as a generic antiviral drug. The drug is aimed at helping patients who are suffering from “mild-to-moderate” COVID-19 from becoming so sick that they need to be hospitalized, officials and Pfizer have said.
“Today’s authorization introduces the first treatment for COVID-19 that is in the form of a pill that is taken orally—a major step forward in the fight against this global pandemic,” Dr. Patrizia Cavazzoni, director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said Wednesday in a news release about the agency’s approval.
The drug, only available via a prescription, can be initiated as soon as possible following a positive diagnosis of COVID-19, the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.
“This authorization provides a new tool to combat COVID-19 at a crucial time in the pandemic as new variants emerge and promises to make antiviral treatment more accessible to patients who are at high risk for progression to severe COVID-19,” Cavazzoni continued.
But the pill is not designed to be used for “pre-exposure or post-exposure prevention” of the CCP virus or for individuals who have been hospitalized due to severe or critical COVID-19, according to the FDA news release.
And the FDA stressed that the drug cannot be a substitute for vaccination and again recommended the common COVID-19 vaccines or booster shots.
The Biden administration has already purchased some 10 million courses of Paxlovid in a deal with $5 billion. In November, the White House announced that the federal government will work to ensure treatments are free and accessible for the general public.
Delivery will start by the start of 2022 and will continue through the remainder of the year, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. Meanwhile, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla told news outlets earlier this month that his firm already shipped the drug to the United States, saying they would be ready when the FDA grants them an emergency use authorization.
“This breakthrough therapy, which has been shown to significantly reduce hospitalizations and deaths and can be taken at home, will change the way we treat COVID-19,” Bourla said Wednesday in a news release.
