Pfizer and the Medicines Patent Tool (MPP), a UN-backed organization helping poorer nations with life-saving medications, announced on Tuesday an agreement allowing other manufactures to produce Pfizer's experimental COVID-19 pill
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th November, 2021) Pfizer and the Medicines Patent Tool (MPP), a UN-backed organization helping poorer nations with life-saving medications, announced on Tuesday an agreement allowing other manufactures to produce Pfizer's experimental COVID-19 pill.
"Pfizer Inc. and the MPP ... announced the signing of a voluntary license agreement for Pfizer's COVID-19 oral antiviral treatment candidate PF-07321332, which is administered in combination with low dose ritonavir (PF-07321332; ritonavir)," the company said in a statement. "The agreement will enable MPP to facilitate additional production and distribution of the investigational antiviral, pending regulatory authorization or approval, by granting sub-licenses to qualified generic medicine manufacturers, with the goal of facilitating greater access to the global population."
The agreement allows qualified manufacturers worldwide to provide PF-07321332 in combination with ritonavir to 95 countries, the statement added. That move will help to cover over half of the world's population, including countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.
MPP executive director Charles Gore stressed the importance of this license, which allows, upon approval, for low- and middle-income countries to receive a medicine critical to fighting the pandemic.
"PF-07321332 is to be taken together with ritonavir, an HIV medicine we know well, as we have had a license on it for many years, and we will be working with generic companies to ensure there is enough supply for both COVID-19 and HIV," Gore said.
Pfizer announced earlier in November that PF-07321332 in combination with ritonavir significantly reduces the risk of hospitalizations and deaths related to COVID-19.