Pfizer’s anti-corona pill: Lauterbach is aiming for Paxlovid approval in January

Pfizer’s anti-corona pill
Lauterbach is aiming for Paxlovid approval in January

Health Minister Lauterbach is not only hoping for the delivery of the first anti-corona pills from Pfizer this month. He also wants to obtain emergency approval for the drug paxlovid. It is “particularly suitable for the treatment of unvaccinated risk patients,” he says.

The federal government wants to obtain emergency approval for the corona drug Paxlovid from the US company Pfizer in January. “I am confident that we will have put together the necessary package for this by the end of this month, so that we have received deliveries of the drug and obtained emergency approval,” said Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach of “Welt am Sonntag”.

Accordingly, the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM) is currently preparing national approval for paxlovid. Germany should be able to use the corona drug even before the approval by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) is still pending.

“The remedy is particularly suitable for the treatment of unvaccinated risk patients. This group is large and particularly at risk,” said SPD politician Lauterbach. The Federal Ministry of Health has already contractually secured one million units of the product from Pfizer and has given an option to deliver a further million units.

“The drug is extremely promising because it can significantly weaken the severe course of Covid when given early,” Lauterbach said at the end of January. “I expect that we will be able to prevent numerous severe courses in the intensive care units.” Increasingly, this gives you the perspective of making another therapeutic option possible. “Slowly, with a combination of increasingly effective vaccines and treatment options, Covid is becoming a disease that will lose its horror.”

Paxlovid is an antiviral that prevents the virus from reproducing. The preparation has not yet been approved in the EU, but the EMA supports the use of paxlovid in emergencies. The US drug agency FDA has already given the corona pill emergency approval for high-risk patients aged twelve and over.

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