New drug molnupiravir shows promise at reducing Covid-19 infection

US drugmaker Merck & Co Inc said on Saturday the experimental antiviral drug molnupiravir it is developing with Ridgeback Bio showed a quicker reduction in infectious virus in its phase 2a study among participants with early COVID-19.

“The secondary objective findings in this study, of a quicker decrease in infectious virus among individuals with early COVID-19 treated with molnupiravir, are promising,” said William Fischer, Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, in a statement from the companies.

The antiviral is being currently tested in a Phase 2/3 trial that is set to be completed in May.

Merck decided to focus on therapeutics after its two COVID-19 vaccines failed to generate desired immune responses, prompting it to abandon the program in January.

Molnupiravir was discovered at Emory in the university’s Drug Innovation Ventures nonprofit spin-off, which has been working on antiviral nucleoside derivatives for many years. The compound was heading for clinical trials against influenza when the pandemic hit, and last March they did a deal with Ridgeback, according to sciencemag.org.

Biotherapeutics to accelerate its progress in coronavirus treatment. Ridgeback then partnered with Merck later in May for the clinical trials and scale-up. was discovered at Emory in the university’s Drug Innovation Ventures nonprofit spin-off, which has been working on antiviral nucleoside derivatives for many years. The compound was heading for clinical trials against influenza when the pandemic hit, and last March they did a deal with Ridgeback Biotherapeutics to accelerate its progress in coronavirus treatment. Ridgeback then partnered with Merck later in May for the clinical trials and scale-up.

“Molnupiravir itself has shown strong activity against a whole list of viruses in preclinical studies – it is indeed a very interesting candidate, even more so because it seems to have an unusually high barrier to resistance mechanisms, the report shows. In December, animal studies showed that it could indeed protect against coronavirus infection. But you’d still definitely classify it as high risk, high reward,” the report said.