Pfizer’s anti-Covid pill may be ready this YEAR as first human trials are set to end in May – as expert studying another antiviral says effective drugs could end lockdowns forever

Pfizer’s Covid-preventing pill could be available by the end of the year if human trials in the US and Belgium are successful.

There are currently no drugs other than vaccines that can stop people developing Covid-19 – but if one is discovered it could spell the end of lockdowns forever, one expert has said.

Pfizer, the company that made one of the most-used jabs in Europe and North America, is already testing its experimental pill on people.

Although most people will get vaccinated against Covid, jabs aren’t 100 per cent effective and some people can’t have them or don’t benefit as much, meaning coronavirus will still spread and still be dangerous for unprotected people.

Pills could help to prevent severe illness in people for whom jabs don’t work as well, or be a second line of defense in case an immune-resistant new variant emerges.

Around 60 people are currently involved in the first phase of Pfizer’s PF-07321332 trial, which is expected to come to an end on May 25.

After this, if the pill turns out to be safe, larger trials with more people will be done to prove that it definitely does stop Covid, as lab tests suggested it will.

Boris Johnson announced last week that the Government was setting up an antivirals taskforce to find and buy up antiviral drugs that could make Covid treatable at home by the autumn.

Professor Kevin Blyth, a University of Glasgow scientist running a trial of the antiviral drug favipiravir which could be given after someone has caught the virus, said: ‘It would be a huge step forward if antiviral drugs work… Normal services can function and you don’t have to have lockdown’.

Drug-makers often take years to get a new product studied, tested and produced for market, but science has been accelerated in the rush to stop Covid.

It took less than a year for Pfizer to get its vaccine from a lab into people’s arms and PF-07321332 could be ready by the end of 2021, The Telegraph reports.

Professor Penny Ward, a pharmaceutical medicine expert at King’s College London, told the newspaper: ‘If they have moved to this stage, they will be quietly optimistic.

‘The question will be about how the drug is tolerated… They will be going like the clappers.’

The trial being done now is to test the safety of the drug after it was found to have ‘potent antiviral activity’ in lab experiments.

It works by sticking to specific enzymes that the virus uses to reproduce and therefore forces it to stop multiplying, preventing it from spreading.

Remdesivir is the only antiviral drug routinely being used in hospitals in the UK and US, but it has to be injected and studies have struggled to prove that it works. It was not designed for Covid specifically.

Covid-specific therapies being developed include molnupiravir, by Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics; Tollovir, by Todos Medical; and NT-300 by Romark.

A flu drug – favipiravir – and HIV antivirals – ritonavir and lopinavir – are also being trialled to see if they could be repurposed for people with coronavirus.

Glasgow University’s Professor Kevin Blyth is running a trial of favipravir, which is already used to treat flu in Japan – marketed as Tamiflu – but was deemed too expensive for the NHS.

He said successfully finding an at-home treatment for Covid could spell the end of lockdowns for god.

Professor Blyth told The Mirror: ‘It would be a huge step forward if antiviral drugs work.

‘You don’t have any hospital services being put under enormous pressure because patients never come to the hospital.

‘Normal services can function and you don’t have to have lockdown or other draconian control measures.’

He added that, ideally, a pill could be given to someone soon after they got exposed to the virus and before they got sick.

‘You may be able to reduce spread and the risk of outbreaks happening,’ he said.

By: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/