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Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%

fiercebiotech.com

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Re: Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%

#781
post #717
post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say that this will appeal to people who are covid vaccine skeptical. If you're skeptical of the mRNA vaccines, you'd probably be in favor of this treatment than the vaccines.

I'm not so certain. People who for whatever irrational reason don't want an mRNA vaccine can take a viral vector vaccine. Yet they don't.

I suppose some people would lump me in with "anti-vaxxer" because I don't want to get the Covid vaccine.

I'm not anti-vax, btw. I have a medical condition that requires me to receive regular vaccination against several diseases, and I'm strict about doing that on time.

I've made a calculated decision in the case of this specific vaccine based on that fact that I've now had Covid twice (first time was a bit nasty, second time was very mild) and have acquired fairly robust natural immunity.

According to almost all of the research I've read, natural immunity is at least as effective as the vaccine, which makes sense to me. Our bodies (if healthy) tend to be pretty good at this stuff.

The vaccine carries risk, all medical treatments do. When I calculate my baseline risk - very healthy, fit, no cormobidities, etc..., couple it with my acquired natural immunity, my chances of a negative outcome from Covid asymptotically approach zero. This appears to me to be less risk than the vaccine introduces.

I say all this to describe my mindset, I think a lot of people share it. Lumping everyone that choses based on a risk calculation to not receive the vaccine as "anti-vaxxer" is a common thing that people do (though I believe it is wrong).

All that being said, my primary point is that if I got Covid again, I'd absolutely be receptive to a therapeutic like this.

My decision against getting the vaccine was entirely risk based. At the point where I've contracted the illness again, however unlikely, the risk has been realized and I would 100% be receptive to taking this therapeutic if my doctor recommended it.

Re: Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%

#782
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Researchers in pharma are working extremely hard and almost always in good faith. I know this is probably tongue-in-cheek but it's not true.

Found the big pharma PR guy. The people in pharma are 100% not in this for the right reasons. Not one. Look into Every Single one of these companies just a tiny bit and you'll see how absolutely evil they are and by working for them you are complicit. You don't have to agree with reality, but that's reality.

People working in big pharma do it for money. But guess what, I work for money too, and it is the same for >99% of people.

But most people appreciate it when as a side effect, their work save lives.

Re: Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%

#783

> As a protease inhibitor, Paxlovid is free from the theoretical DNA-alteration risk tied to the mechanism of action of Merck’s molnupiravir. This is the line I was looking for. Not that I know how protease inhibitor works, but looks more like a traditional anti-viral approach v.s. the potentially DNA altering molnupiravir.

I doubt we’ll see molnupiravir getting approved in this context now. I think the mechanism just has too much risk.

Are you a pharmaceutical research scientist?

Re: Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%

#784

While this looks like potentially great news, Pfizer really needs a new Head of Making Up Drug Names. Paxlovid! Between this and ‘Comirnaty’ (the vaccine) it is clearly not their strong point.

Basically all pharmaceutical names are created by the same branding company. https://www.brandinstitute.com/

There goes the "company A has better names than company B" theory?

Re: Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%

#785
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven’t read anything about this study, but this is common for highly effective treatments. Let’s say you have a randomized clinical trial with a control arm (placebo) and test arm (drug). If the vast majority of the test cases do significantly better (like 90% of the test cases), at some point it becomes unethical to continue. Why? Because you already have the evidence that the treatment works, so having the contr…

Pardon my naive question, but aren't there more objectives for the clinical trial? Particularly testing for negative side effects? How are those judged if the trial is discontinued?

Data on the most obvious side effects are collected in the first phase which is a very small group of healthy patients who take the drug under medical supervision in increasing doses until the side effects are so bad they can't keep going. They use this data to establish safety limits for the rest of the clinical trial and continue monitoring the situation until well after the drug is approved.

Re: Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%

#786
post #717
post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say that this will appeal to people who are covid vaccine skeptical. If you're skeptical of the mRNA vaccines, you'd probably be in favor of this treatment than the vaccines.

I'm not so certain. People who for whatever irrational reason don't want an mRNA vaccine can take a viral vector vaccine. Yet they don't.

Maybe if they're hesitant for irrational reasons. But if they're hesitant for rational reasons, mRNA vaccines and modified adenovirus vaccines are both new for mass use.

There are some inactivated virus vaccines which would be best for people who want to avoid new vaccine types, but AFAIK they haven't even been tested in the US.

Re: Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%

#787

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case the alternative to the trial would be the ‘dangerous’ option of no treatment. So that doesn’t really apply here.

How does it not apply here? Are you saying that no treatment (right now there are no standards of care for COVID-19) is not dangerous? If I recall correctly, that option is leading to people dying.

Read again.

> In this case the alternative to the trial would be the […] option of no treatment

So the alternative is what we do now, which indeed is the ‘dangerous’ option.

Re: Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%

#788
post #144

I am thinking: if and when this is approved, we have to think about distribution. This drug is fantastically effective at preventing hospitalisation and death, if administered within three days of symptom onset. That gives quite a long time! But we still need to make it easy to take. Do pharmacies give it out? ER rooms? We don't want to wait until people are hospitalised; we are trying to avoid that. So when you test…

Who is the market for this? The assumption is that you give it ASAP and people want to take it. If people aren’t interested in vaccinations they may not want it either, and the vaccines are already very effective at preventing these issues.

> Who is the market for this?

Wealthy people.

Re: Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%

#789
post #70
post #13

> Pfizer used data on patients who were treated within three days of symptom onset as the headline finding in its press release > There were six hospitalizations and no deaths among the 607 patients who received Paxlovid within five days of symptom onset, compared to 41 hospitalizations and 10 deaths in the placebo cohort. > Like Merck, Pfizer excluded people vaccinated against COVID-19 from its late-phase study. No…

If the cost is low enough and the side effects are mild enough it could work. People would take it before a test is positive so would end up taking it when they didn’t really need it. It’s similar to the antivirals for flu where you need to take it early on so it becomes habit to test early and start early. Home labs will help with this too. Where someone could take a test, get a prescription and pickup within a few…

> It’s similar to the antivirals for flu where you need to take it early on so it becomes habit to test early and start early.

Are you actually able to get tests? I've brought my kid into urgent care and they won't test for flu, so it doesn't matter that there's a drug available, because they won't test.

Re: Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%

#790
post #691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that was due to the wisdom of operation warpspeed. Trump is under credited for this (whether his idea or not, he could claim it as such). What’s shocking to me is that he hasn’t been more pro-vax given we have the vaccines we do because of his administration.

Operation Warp Speed is, to me, an indication of the power of government "intertia". Trump changed a lot of things, and while an uncomfortable amount of the U.S. government seems to run on "tradition" that isn't actually law, after 4 years of unchecked assault it was only at the very end that it really got crazy. Warp speed is the work of career guys. Not even Fauchi -- he was important, but these ideas are put toget…

> Operation Warp Speed is, to me, an indication of the power of government "intertia".

We call this the Deep State

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