Study finds Pfizer COVID-19 pill effective against Omicron variant

Pfizer says its experimental COVID-19 pill appears to be effective against the Omicron variant.

In an announcement on Tuesday, the company says full results of its 2,250-person study confirmed the pill’s promising early results against the virus: The drug, which could be taken at home, reduced combined hospitalizations and deaths by about 89 per cent among high-risk adults when taken shortly after initial COVID-19 symptoms.

Separate laboratory testing shows the drug retains its potency against the Omicron variant, the company says.

The federal government has an agreement with Pfizer that will provide Canada with an initial quantity of 1 million courses of the oral antiviral treatment, pending Health Canada authorization. Pfizer submitted a rolling submission for authorization to Health Canada, earlier this month.

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Health Canada has also been reviewing Merck’s COVID-19 drug, which reduces hospitalizations and deaths by 30% in high-risk adults, according to results released by the company late last month. The federal government has an agreement with Merck for 500,000 courses of its treatment, pending approval.

The Food and Drug Administration has also been reviewing both drugs and is expected to soon rule on whether to authorize them. If granted, the pills would be the first COVID-19 treatments that Americans could pickup at a pharmacy and take at home.

Pfizer is also studying its pill in lower-risk adults — including a subset who are vaccinated — but reported mixed data for that group on Tuesday.

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In interim results, Pfizer said its drug failed to meet its main study goal: sustained relief from COVID-19 for four days during or after treatment, as reported by patients. But the drug did achieve a second goal by reducing hospitalizations by about 70 per cent among that group, which included otherwise healthy unvaccinated adults and vaccinated adults with one or more health issues. Less than one per cent of patients who got the drug were hospitalized, compared with 2.4 per cent of patients who got a dummy pill.

An independent board of medical experts reviewed the data and recommended Pfizer continue the study to get the full results before proceeding further with regulators.

Across both of Pfizer’s studies, adults taking the company’s drug had a 10-fold decrease in virus levels compared with those on placebo.

New pills to fight COVID-19 may be a game changer in the pandemic and ease pressure on the health care system.

Both the Merck and Pfizer pills are expected to perform well against Omicron because they don’t target the coronavirus’ spike protein, which contains most of the new variant’s mutations.