Pfizer is Testing a Pill That, if Successful, Could Become First-Ever Home Cure for COVID-19
upstart writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:
Pfizer is testing a pill that, if successful, could become first-ever home cure for COVID-19:
At two anonymous Pfizer buildings, one in the U.S. and one in Belgium, a remarkable experiment is under way. Up to 60 volunteers, all clean-living adults aged between 18 and 60, are being given the first pill specifically designed to stop Covid-19.
[...] The molecule being tested is a bespoke antiviral code-named PF-07321332. Classed as a "protease inhibitor", it has been formulated to attack the "spine" of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and stop it replicating in our nose, throats and lungs. It was protease inhibitors that turned the tide on the spread of HIV in the UK and around the world. Now researchers hope they may be on the brink of a similar pandemic-busting breakthrough.
[...] "We have designed PF-07321332 as a potential oral therapy that could be prescribed at the first sign of infection, without requiring that patients are hospitalised or in critical care", said Mikael Dolsten, chief scientific officer and president of worldwide research, development and medical at Pfizer, in a statement released last month.
[...] Pfizer's scientists will have most likely established the drug's "potent" action against SARS-CoV-2 by deploying it against infected human tissue cultures, including lung tissue, in a laboratory.
[...] The "randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, single- and multiple-dose escalation study" is designed to see how well or otherwise different dosing regimens are tolerated in humans while the active compound is maintained in the body.
PF-07321332 will be administered in combination with low doses of ritonavir, an antiviral used to treat HIV. It acts as a "booster" to increase the amount of PF-07321332 in participants' blood.
Phase 1 of the trial is designed to see how it "is tolerated as the dose is increased, alone or with ritonavir, if there are significant side effects, and how people feel after taking it", say the documents.
Phase 2 will do the same but with "multiple doses", while in Phase 3, tablet and liquid forms of the drug will be tested, as will the impact of eating on top of it.
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