Pfizer, maker of the most widely-used COVID-19 vaccine in the U.S., is testing a possible pill-based treatment for the virus using the exact same class of medication typically used to treat HIV.
Pfizer announced the beginning of a stage 1 scientific trial using a protease inhibitor tablet as a treatment for the infection on Tuesday. News of the trial comes months after Pfizer‘s COVID-19 vaccine, made in collaboration with the German company BioNTech, was approved for usage and started to be administered in the U.S. and several other countries. The tablet, presently dubbed PF-07321332, could use an additional weapon against the infection as fast-moving anomalies threaten to damage the efficiency of vaccines.
” Tackling the COVID-19 pandemic requires both prevention through vaccine and targeted treatment for those who contract the infection,” Pfizer’s Chief Scientific Officer Mikael Dolsten said in a statement gotten by Newsweek “Provided the manner in which SARS-CoV-2 is altering and the continued global impact of COVID-19, it appears most likely that it will be important to have access to therapeutic options both now and beyond the pandemic.”
” We have actually developed PF-07321332 as a prospective oral treatment that might be prescribed at the first sign of infection, without requiring that clients are hospitalized or in critical care,” added Dolsten.
The drug has shown activity versus the infection that triggers COVID-19 in test tube experiments, in addition to activity against other types of coronaviruses, with the business stating that the results raise the possibility of “prospective use to deal with future coronavirus threats.”
Spencer Platt/Getty
Dolsten promoted both the oral medication and the company’s previously-developed experimental protease inhibitor treatment created to be administered to hospitalized COVID-19 patients intravenously, which is currently going through phase 1b trials.
While none of the vaccines use overall defense against contracting the virus, they have been shown to significantly minimize infections and to be incredibly effective in preventing hospitalizations and death.
As of Tuesday, over 64.6 million people in the U.S. had actually received at least one dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Moderna’s vaccine was not far behind, with around 60.9 million dosages administered, while the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine had actually entered into the arms of just under 2.5 million people.
Protease inhibitors, which block virus reproduction by binding to proteins called protease, were a class of drugs that revolutionized HIV treatment in the mid-1990 s. They are key elements in the multi-drug “cocktail” therapies that altered HIV from an infection that practically usually led to AIDS and death to a condition that can normally be endured if treatments are offered and used regularly. The drugs are also used versus Liver disease C infections, while scientists have examined their usage as treatments for specific kinds of cancer and parasitic infections.
No comments:
Post a Comment