Pfizer strikes licensing deal for Covid pill

Pfizer Inc yesterday said it will allow generic manufacturers to supply its experimental antiviral Covid-19 pill to 95 low- and middle-income countries through a licensing agreement with international public health group Medicines Patent Pool (MPP).

The voluntary licensing agreement between Pfizer and the MPP will allow the UN-backed group to grant sub-licences to qualified generic drug manufacturers to make their own versions of PF-07321332. Pfizer will sell the pills it manufactures under the brand name Paxlovid.

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Pfizer, which also makes one of the mostly 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 95 countries in the agreement cover around 53% of the world's population and include all low- and lower-middle-income countries. They also include countries that have transitioned from lower-middle to upper-middle-income status in the past five years, Pfizer and the MPP said.

Pfizer will waive royalties on sales in low-income countries.

Meanwhile, according to a new analysis Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna are making combined profits of $65,000 every minute from their highly successful Covid-19 vaccines while the world's poorest countries remain largely unvaccinated.

People's Vaccine Alliance (PVA) estimates that the trio will make pre-tax profits of $34 billion this year between them, which works out to over $1,000 a second, $65,000 a minute or $93.5 million a day.