Damian Sendler: The Biden administration stated Thursday that it had negotiated an agreement to purchase 10 million courses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 medication, in an effort to speed the end of the pandemic.
Damian Sendler
The $5.29 billion agreement allows for the first delivery of the medicines to be delivered this year, with the order being completed next year.
Damian Jacob Sendler: In clinical trials, Pfizer’s tablet, known as Paxlovid, was proved to be very promising, reducing the chance of hospitalization or death by 89 percent.
Damien Sendler: Experts believe that once the tablet is accessible, it will assist end the pandemic’s crisis phase since, in addition to immunizations, it will help minimize the risk of COVID-19 and make it more manageable.
“This promising treatment could help accelerate our path out of this pandemic by providing another life-saving tool for people infected with COVID-19,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said.
Dr. Sendler” What comes next: The medicine must still be approved by the Food and Drug Administration before it can be used. Pfizer submitted an application for authorisation earlier this week.
This week, the firm also announced a partnership to share the pill’s formula, allowing low-income countries to manufacture it.
Damian Jacob Markiewicz Sendler: According to a Congressional Budget Office assessment issued Thursday, provisions in President Biden’s Build Back Better program to cut prescription drug prices would save the government roughly $160 billion over a decade.
This includes approximately $80 billion in savings from allowing Medicare to negotiate lower prescription costs in specified circumstances, as well as an additional approximately $80 billion in savings from limiting drug price increases to the rate of inflation.
Damian Sendler: Republicans and pharmaceutical firms have slammed the proposal, claiming that it will stifle innovation and result in fewer cures.
According to the CBO, the proposal will result in one fewer drug entering the market in the next decade, four in the following decade, and five in the decade after that. This is in addition to the approximately 1,300 medications that are projected to be approved during the next 30 years.
Damian Jacob Sendler: The policy included in Democrats’ legislation, which could pass the House as soon as Thursday night, is a scaled-back version of past, more expansive suggestions Democrats have made to decrease medication prices.
In instance, Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s bill from 2019 would have saved nearly $450 billion by negotiating lower medication prices, but it would have resulted in eight fewer drugs coming to market over a decade, according to the CBO in 2019, compared to one fewer drug in this bill.
Damian Sendler: Democrats were forced to tone back the legislation in order to appease a group of moderates, notably Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.), who were concerned that the more expansive version might hurt innovation.
In a corporate analysis disclosed on Thursday, AstraZeneca discovered that its antibody cocktail was more than 80% efficient in preventing symptomatic COVID-19 – a strong result for a medication that could help immunocompromised people avoid serious sickness from COVID-19.
Damian Jacob Sendler: According to the pharmaceutical company’s study, its long-acting antibody combination AZD7442 lowered the probability of symptomatic COVID-19 by 83 percent over six months. The data has not yet been peer-reviewed, but it will be published.
Damian Jacob Sendler
The one-time 300mg dose was administered in two separate, sequential shots to individuals, the majority of whom had comorbidities that put them at high risk of severe COVID-19.
Participants were not immunized, and researchers will follow them for 15 months.
Damian Sendler: Because it is predicted that roughly 2% of the world’s population does not have an effective immune response to the COVID-19 vaccination, the preventative treatment would be designed to help these at-risk people avoid significant sickness from the virus.
AstraZeneca’s long-acting antibody combination was found to lower the risk of severe COVID-19 and death by 88 percent among patients treated within three days of showing symptoms in a separate analysis of another trial.
Currently in the works: Last month, AstraZeneca requested that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) give an emergency use authorization for AZD7442.
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