This anti-Covid pill changes everything. So why won’t it be available for all? | Eric Topol

Paxlovid is expected to work well against Omicron. The real problem is that production is insufficient

What if there was a pill you could take as soon as you test positive for Covid, that stopped the virus in its tracks? A pill that reduced the viral number of copies in your upper airway (known as viral load) by more than tenfold, markedly reducing contagiousness to others? And that reduced the chance of hospitalization by nearly 90%?

There is such a pill, called Paxlovid, which was developed specifically for the Sars-CoV-2 virus, derived from a molecule that was effective in the lab against the original SARS virus, and is a potent inhibitor of the main protease of the virus, called Mpro. It's the chokepoint for preventing the virus from replicating. It has been tested in two randomized clinical trials compared with a placebo, and not only was its potency established, but it proved to be as safe as the placebo.

Eric Topol is the founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, professor of molecular medicine, and executive vice-president of Scripps Research