Pharmaceutical titan Pfizer Inc. announced on Tuesday its allowance of generic manufacture of its experimental antiviral COVID-19 pill in low and middle-income nations through a licensing agreement with international public health group Medicines Patent Pool (MPP).
Pfizer will sub-licence production of its promising Paxlovid pill, the name under which the pill would be sold globally, to generic drug manufacturers for supply in 95 low- and middle-income nations covering around 53 percent of the world’s population.
Under the deal struck with the MPP, Pfizer, which also produces one of the most widely-used Covid vaccines with German lab BioNTech, will not receive royalties from the generic manufacturers, making the treatment cheaper.
The Geneva-based MPP is a United Nations-backed international organisation that works to facilitate the development of medicines for low- and middle-income nations.
Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said it was “disheartened” by the deal which it said was restrictive and excluded countries such as Argentina and China with established capacity for producing generic drugs.
Pfizer, which also makes one of the most widely used COVID-19 vaccines, has said the pill cut the chance of hospitalisation or death for adults at risk of severe disease by 89% in its clinical trial. The drug will be used in combination with ritonavir, an HIV drug that is already available generically.
Pfizer’s licensing deal follows a similar arrangement by rival Merck & Co for generic manufacturing of its COVID-19 treatment. The deals are unusual arrangements that acknowledge the dire need for effective treatments as well as the pressure drugmakers are under to make their life-saving drugs accessible at very low costs.
“We are extremely pleased to have another weapon in our armoury to protect people from the ravages of COVID-19,” Charles Gore, Executive Director of the Medicines Patent Pool, said in an interview.
Gore said he hoped the generic version of Pfizer’s drug would be available within months.
“We must work to ensure that all people – regardless of where they live or their circumstances – have access to these breakthroughs,” Pfizer Chief Executive Albert Bourla said in a statement.
The company has said it expects to manufacture 180,000 treatment courses by the end of next month and at least 50 million courses by the end of 2022.
Even so, the drugmaker could be stretched trying to supply 47% of the world’s population. A Pfizer executive said last week the market for the drug might be up to 150 million people and that many countries might also be interested in buying doses for their strategic reserves.
Pfizer has said it will sell the supply it produces using a tiered pricing approach based on the income level of each country. In the United States, it expects to price its treatment close to where Merck has priced its drug at around $700 a course.
Merck has licence agreements for its COVID-19 pill, molnupiravir, in over 100 countries. Still, some international health officials said even that is not enough for the medicine to reach many in low- and middle-income countries in large enough numbers.