Drugmaker Pfizer said Friday its experimental pill designed to fight coronavirus reduced the risk of hospitalization and death for high-risk patients taking part in a trial of the drug.
The company hopes it can eventually offer the pill, given in combination with an older antiviral drug called ritonavir, to people to take at home before they get sick enough to go to the hospital.
The company said a so-called interim analysis — done before the trial was scheduled to end — showed an 89% reduction in the risk of hospitalization or death from Covid-19 if patients got it soon enough.
The results were so striking, the company stopped the trial and is preparing to make its case to the US Food and Drug Administration for emergency authorization of the drug.
