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Antiviral Molnupiravir Reduces Risk of Hospitalization/Death by ~50 Percent

merck.com

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Re: Antiviral Molnupiravir Reduces Risk of Hospitalization/Death by ~50 Percent

#41

Post by alistairSH »

gfodor wrote: post #25

This is phenomenal news - I'm also curious how the various tribalist memes evolve. Will the vaccine maximalists who ridiculed "horse paste" when the data was still weak in part because a pill-based regime would undermine the message that vaccines ought to be mandatory embrace this much needed second tier therapeutic? Will the anti-vaxxers who will inevitably see this as the goal of a big pharma conspiracy covering up…

I probably fall into the "vaccine maximalist" category, having family who fall into high-risk categories (age, immune-compromised).

This doesn't change my feelings. The existence of a treatment doesn't negate the importance of vaccination. It does make me hopeful that a return to normal may come sooner than later, as any new treatments reduce the risk of my family dying should they, despite their best efforts, become infected.

Re: Antiviral Molnupiravir Reduces Risk of Hospitalization/Death by ~50 Percent

#42

Post by nradov »

mmastrac wrote: post #24
mrfusion wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we’re worried about hospital capacity why are we firing healthcare workers?

I'm no policy or health care expert, but maybe because front-line and hospital workers are exposed to extremely large viral loads which seem to be related to the severity of the disease, and taking one HCW off the front-lines and adding them to the sick in the ICUs is worse than one less HCW and the same ICU level? This seems like you are trying to start a flamewar about vaccine mandates, BTW.

There's no reliable evidence that healthcare workers wearing proper PPE are exposed to extremely large viral loads. Nor is there evidence that symptom severity depends on initial viral load (beyond some minimum threshold for infection). It's a plausible hypothesis but the human challenge trials necessary to prove or disprove it haven't been done yet.

Re: Antiviral Molnupiravir Reduces Risk of Hospitalization/Death by ~50 Percent

#43

Post by lsternlicht »

Phase 3 trial was stopped on a positive interim analysis by DSMB and in consultation with FDA

Interim analysis was performed on approximately half of the total enrolled patients (775 of the 1550).

Trial included many delta and other variant patients

—————

Efficacy

  • ~50% reduction in hospitalization (14.1% PBO vs 7.3% drug)

  • 100% reduction in deaths (8 PBO vs 0 drug)
—————

Safety

  • fewer adverse reactions in the drug arm vs PBO (40% PBO vs 35% drug)
—————

[Merck Ridgeback press release] https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20211001005189/en/Mer...

[clinicaltrials.gov] https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04575597?term=molnupi...

Re: Antiviral Molnupiravir Reduces Risk of Hospitalization/Death by ~50 Percent

#44

Post by elliekelly »

tiahura wrote: post #18

The Ridgeback founders were on CNBC this morning in a very encouraging interview. A few takeaways: 1. They are testing now as a prophylactic and anticipate positive results. 2. The mechanism of action is different from the upcoming Pfizer pill, so it’s reasonable to expect they can be taken together as a cocktail for even better outcomes. 3. It is showing positive results with other viruses in animals. Cool stuff!

> The Ridgeback founders were on CNBC this morning in a very encouraging interview.

This just feels wrong and makes me uncomfortable for reasons I’m not quite able to articulate.

Re: Antiviral Molnupiravir Reduces Risk of Hospitalization/Death by ~50 Percent

#45

Post by kazinator »

_Microft wrote: post #2

If you want to read a comment on this, try Derek Lowe's: https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/molnupiravir-thor-... Wikipedia has an article on the drug already if you would like to have a look at that instead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molnupiravir

> exerts its antiviral action through introduction of copying errors during viral RNA replication

How does this target only viral RNA, not the body's own?

Copying errors don't sound like something you want in your own RNA.

"However, there are inherent risks in this approach. NHC can be metabolized by the host cell to the 20-deoxyribonucleoside form by the ribonucleotide reductase and then incorporated into the host cell DNA. The mutagenic effect of NHC has been shown in animal cell cultures (10), raising concerns on the potential risk of molnupiravir-induced tumorigenesis and the emergence of detrimental mutations in sperm precursor cell generation and embryo development."

https://www.jbc.org/article/S0021-9258(21)00667-0/pdf

Yikes. I think, instead of quaffing carcinogens, it's wiser to get vaccinated.

Re: Antiviral Molnupiravir Reduces Risk of Hospitalization/Death by ~50 Percent

#47

Post by OrvalWintermute »

loeg wrote: post #23
mrfusion wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we’re worried about hospital capacity why are we firing healthcare workers?

We have vaccine mandates because infected healthcare workers spreading COVID reduce capacity even more. We haven't actually fired many workers, because the vast majority just get the vaccine (mostly before the mandates).

You've made an amazing claim, that infected healthcare workers, who, were caring for Covid patients for almost 2 years now, have been spreading COVID further. This, despite the fact that they are most likely to have caught it early as they were caring for patients prior to vaccines, and hence to have obtained natural immunity.

Please provide evidence to support your amazing claim.

Re: Antiviral Molnupiravir Reduces Risk of Hospitalization/Death by ~50 Percent

#48

Post by clairity »

shusaku wrote: post #17

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/01/us/merck-antiviral-pill-c... The NYTimes article sort of came off as suggesting this is a cheaper, easier to administer alternative to monoclonal antibodies. So I wonder what the overall effect will be on the number of deaths going forward. It’s definitely phenomenal science though, and hopefully we can use this to keep people out of the hospital!

the interview i heard this morning indivcated that there's also a big unknown around whether it can induce genetic mutation (presumably in gametes). (male) participants were advised against (unprotected?) sex during the trials to prevent potential future problems with progeny.

Re: Antiviral Molnupiravir Reduces Risk of Hospitalization/Death by ~50 Percent

#49

Post by easytiger »

logicalmonster wrote: post #40
mmastrac wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it halves hospitalizations, it'll have a pretty drastic effect on overwhelmed ICUs but there's probably still a ways to go before ICU levels return to normal and we can skip mandates.

What are normal ICU levels and is this a goalpost that can ever be achieved? Long before Covid, it was well-known that hospital ICUs were designed to run fairly close to 100% capacity because it wasn't profitable to pay for staff that weren't truly needed at any given time. Is there any hospital that is going to pay for far more staff than they need and somehow manufacture many ICU beds out of nowhere? I feel like th…

Not to mention standardised admission criteria and ICU eligibility criteria were chucked out the window in many countries when covid became a thing

Edit downvotes and no discussion. This place is getting worse

Re: Antiviral Molnupiravir Reduces Risk of Hospitalization/Death by ~50 Percent

#50

Post by yupper32 »

gfodor wrote: post #25

This is phenomenal news - I'm also curious how the various tribalist memes evolve. Will the vaccine maximalists who ridiculed "horse paste" when the data was still weak in part because a pill-based regime would undermine the message that vaccines ought to be mandatory embrace this much needed second tier therapeutic? Will the anti-vaxxers who will inevitably see this as the goal of a big pharma conspiracy covering up…

Not exactly going to be the same thing.

Merck is applying for EUA use of this medication for Covid-19, something that Ivermectin never had. In addition, further studies didn't show Ivermectin to be useful for Covid. The study that first looked at Ivermectin has been proven to be not useful.

If another study came out opposing the Merck data, then we'd have to dig in as well to find out why, and see if either study was faulty, and if more studies are required or not.

This is how science and medicine works.

There is a large group of people that see disproving studies/claims to mean that some higher power is holding back the miracle cure. That's what happened with Ivermectin, Hydroxychloroquine, etc. This is not how science and medicine should be viewed.

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