A Pfizer employee checks boxes containing Paxlovid, COVID-19 treatment pills, at a distribution center in Memphis, Tennessee, in this undated photo.
Pfizer | Reuters
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President Joe Biden has ordered 10 million more courses of Pfizer’s Covid-19 treatment pill, doubling the US government’s purchase of the oral antiviral drug as the country faces an unprecedented wave of new infections due to largely to the highly contagious variant of omicron.
With this new order, the United States has committed to purchase at least 20 million courses from Pfizer. The Biden administration is also speeding up delivery of the first 10 million treatments through June instead of September, according to the White House.
Pfizer, in a press release announcing the new US order on Tuesday, said the remaining 10 million courses will be shipped by the end of September.
The White House said the pills take time to manufacture and the United States receives them as soon as they roll off the production line, according to a statement. The United States will provide all resources, including using the Defense Production Act, to support Pfizer during the manufacturing process, according to the White House.
Biden is due to meet the White House Covid-19 response team on Tuesday afternoon and will brief the country on his omicron plan as it sweeps the country, leading to new infections at a high pandemic level .
The United States recorded more than one million new infections on Monday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The single-day record total could be partly due to a delay in reporting over the holiday weekend, when a number of states did not publish new cases.
However, the seven-day average for new infections also hit a record high at over 480,000, nearly double the previous week, according to a CNBC analysis of Hopkins data.
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Pfizer’s treatment, Paxlovid, was 89% effective in preventing hospitalizations and death from Covid in a study of more than 2,000 high-risk adults, according to the company.
The Food and Drug Administration cleared treatment in December for patients 12 years and older with mild to moderate Covid who are at the highest risk of hospitalization or death. Treatment is only available with a prescription and should be given twice a day for five days.
Paxlovid is given as three tablets, two nirmatrelvir tablets and one ritonavir tablet. Nirmatrelvir blocks an enzyme that the virus needs to replicate while ritonavir, a popular anti-HIV drug, helps slow the patient’s metabolism to allow Pfizer’s pill to stay active in the body longer to fight off the disease. virus.
Treatment could help ease pressure on health systems by keeping people, especially those who are not vaccinated, out of hospitals as Covid cases continue to rise.
About 98,000 Americans are hospitalized with Covid-19, according to a seven-day average of Department of Health and Human Services data as of Jan. 3, up 32% from a week ago.
– CNBC’s Nate Rattner contributed to this report.
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