The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on May 25 fully approved Pfizer’s oral antiviral medication Paxlovid to treat mild to moderate COVID-19 in adults at risk of severe infections.
This clears the way for the drugmaker to sell it at market rates once the U.S. government supplies dwindle.
The FDA says that Paxlovid is the fourth drug and first antiviral pill to be approved for the treatment of COVID-19. The drug is a combination of two medications—nirmatrelvir and ritonavir—which are taken together as pills within the first five days of a person’s COVID-19 symptoms.
Nirmatrelvir and ritonavir tablets had been available for adults and teens in the United States in late 2021 under an emergency use authorization (EUA), which strictly limited how the medication could be prescribed. The FDA’s standards for full approval are stricter than those for an EUA….