The US has reserved millions of units of Pfizer drug

In the USA, a new drug from the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is fueling hopes that it will largely avoid serious illnesses in the future following infections with the coronavirus. The risk of life-threatening courses of the lung disease Covid-19 has decreased in susceptible adults by 89 percent when they take the drug, Pfizer said. US President Joe Biden said the US has reserved millions of units of the drug even though it has not yet been officially approved. Great Britain also secured the first batches of the drug. Pfizer shares responded by jumping. "If the (drug agency) FDA allows it, we may soon have pills that can be used to treat infected people," said Biden. "Therapy will be another tool in our tool kit to protect people from the worst effects of the pandemic." British Health Minister Sajid Javid spoke of "incredible results" from the Pfizer study. A US government official said, along with releasing vaccines for children between the ages of five and eleven, the Pfizer pill could mark a turning point in the fight against coronavirus. Pfizer aims to produce millions of pills by the end of 2022. The shares of the drug manufacturer reacted on Wall Street with a price jump and rose by eight percent to $ 47.38, shares of competitors fell significantly. But shares in airlines and cruise companies also rose in the hope of an effective corona drug. According to the preliminary results, the pill is more effective than the drug molnupiravir from US rival Merck, which had halved the risk in similar tests. The study with around 1200 subjects was terminated prematurely, explained Pfizer. The data will now be submitted to the FDA. The group had already submitted an application for emergency approval of the agent in October. "These data suggest that our oral antiviral drug candidate, if approved by the authorities, has the potential to save patients' lives, reduce the severity of Covid-19 infections and add up to nine in ten hospital stays Avoid, "said Pfizer boss Albert Bourla. Production should now be ramped up. The pill is given in combination with an older antiviral called ritonavir. The combination treatment with the brand name Paxlovid consists of three tablets to be taken twice a day. The drug, which belongs to a class of protease inhibitors, is said to block an enzyme that the coronavirus needs to multiply. The Merck pill molnupiravir has a different mechanism of action that aims to introduce errors in the virus' genetic code. Infectious disease experts have so far emphasized that vaccinations are the best way to fight the pandemic. In the US, however, only 58 percent of the population is fully vaccinated. In many countries around the world, access to the vaccines is also limited.