Merck and the United Nations–based Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) today announced a licensing deal that will allow pharmaceutical companies in other countries to make molnupiravir—an investigational antiviral to treat COVID-19—a step that would ease access in low- and middle-income countries.First agreement of its kind for the pandemicResults from promising clinical trials suggest that the drug, the first oral treatment of its kind for COVID-19, could be an important tool for cutting hospitalizations and deaths.
Fearing a repeat of the inequitable global rollout of COVID-19 vaccine, global health experts have worried that molnupiravir would be inaccessible and expensive for lower-income countries.Under the agreement terms, Merck (or MSD, of