Chennai: Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics have announced that molnupiravir (MK-4482, EIDD-2801), an investigational oral antiviral medicine, significantly reduced the risk of hospitalisation or death at a planned interim analysis of the Phase 3 MOVe-OUT trial in at risk, non-hospitalised adult patients with mild-to-moderate Covid-19.
At the interim analysis, molnupiravir reduced the risk of hospitalisation or death by approximately 50 per cent; 7.3 per cent of patients who received molnupiravir were either hospitalised or died through Day 29 following randomisation (28/385), compared with 14.1 per cent of placebo- treated patients (53/377); p=0.0012. Through Day 29, no deaths were reported in patients who received molnupiravir, as compared to eight deaths in patients who received placebo, a statement said.