(Reuters) – Merck & Co Inc has signed nine deals to sell more than about 3 million courses in total of its experimental COVID-19 pill molnupiravir to governments around the world as nations scramble to tame the pandemic.
Merck’s COVID-19 treatment is, however, not the only one in the game. On Friday, the company’s U.S. peer Pfizer Inc halted early a trial of its antiviral drug after it proved to cut the risk of severe COVID-19 by 89%, outdoing the results seen with Merck’s product.
Pfizer said it expects to submit interim trial results for its pill to U.S. Food and Drug Administration before the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday on Nov. 25.
The United States has secured “millions of pill doses” of Pfizer’s COVID-19 treatment pill, President Joe Biden said on Friday.
While Merck’s drug approval in the United States is also still pending, Britain has become the first country in the world to approve the pill. The UK has already secured 480,000 courses of Merck’s drug and procured 250,000 courses of Pfizer’s.
The following tables list countries that have already expressed interest in Merck or Pfizer pills, sorted alphabetically:
Merck pill
COUNTRY VOLUME PRICE TIMING OF SOURCE
DELIVERY
Australia 300,000 doses nL1N2R02UO
EU nL1N2R80ZA
France 50,000 doses nP6N2Q901D
Indonesia nL4N2RL2KW
Malaysia 150,000 courses nL1N2R306L
Philippines 300,000 courses 100-150 pesos November 2021 nL4N2RN2GN
($1.97-$2.96) per
pill
Singapore nL1N2R305J
South Korea 20,000 courses nL4N2R21J1
Thailand 200,000 courses nL1N2R00D9
UK 480,000 courses nL4N2RV2FV
U.S. 1,700,000 courses $700 per course nL1N2R00D9
Pfizer pill
COUNTRY VOLUME PRICE TIMING OF SOURCE
DELIVERY
UK 250,000 courses nL8N2RG5EN
U.S. “millions” of nW1N2R701Y
doses
(Reporting by Ina Kreutz, Agnieszka Gosciak and Federica Urso; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
