By Dhirendra Tripathi
Investing.com – Merck stock (NYSE:MRK) traded nearly 3.5% higher in Thursday’s premarket trading as British regulators becoming the first to approve its Covid-19 antiviral oral drug molnupiravir as safe and effective.
That makes molnupiravir the world’s first approved oral antiviral medicine for treating the dreaded infection.
The U.K.’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency authorized molnupiravir for use in adults with mild to moderate Covid and at least one risk factor for developing severe illness. The medicine is also pending review at regulators in the U.S., the European Union and elsewhere.
Coronavirus infections in England reached their highest level yet in October, based on a large study published Thursday, according to Bloomberg.
Last month, U.K. officials said the country had secured 480,000 courses of molnupiravir.
The company claims that the drug, developed jointly with Ridgeback Therapeutics, has shown consistent efficacy across viral variants Gamma, Mu and Delta, the most infectious of all.
Merck expects to produce 10 million courses by the end of 2021, with more to be produced in 2022. It will supply approximately 1.7 million courses to the U.S. government under an existing agreement, assuming all the approvals are in place.
According to a previous statement by Merck, if the emergency approvals were to come through by December, the drug offers an opportunity of up to $7 billion in sales in 2022 including $1 billion in revenue this year.