Antiviral pill cuts fatalities and may ‘tackle future variants and flu’
THE antiviral pill that reduces the risk of dying from Covid by 30 per cent will work against future variants and may also be able to treat flu, according to the drug’s creators.
Dr Dilruwan Chaminda Herath is the UK medical director at Merck, Sharp & Dohme (MSD), the company behind molnupiravir, and is a trained infectious diseases physician who worked on HIV for several years before joining MSD in November 2019.
He said: “We have the laboratory data that suggests molnupiravir is effective against the variants, including omicron … and we envisage that it would remain active against all variants.
“Variants are essentially changing one area on the structure of the virus, on the spike protein.
“Therefore, because molnupiravir doesn’t target the spike protein, what we see in the lab is that the effectiveness doesn’t seem to decrease with different variants so they’re all comparable. We are optimistic that it will continue to work against variants going forward.”
Britain became the first country in the world to authorise the use of the drug to treat Covid on Nov 4, with Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, calling it a “game changer”. Molnupiravir, also known as Lagevrio, was first developed to fight the Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus, and scientists discovered it was the viral equivalent of the Trojan horse.
The drug mimics two of the building blocks that make up viral RNA, so when the virus is in the process of replicating it tries to use the drug to make new genetic code. But while they are similar enough to be incorporated into the virus, they are sufficiently different to derail the entire process, weaving gibberish into the virus’s genes.
This process, called lethal mutagenesis, is an insurmountable obstacle for the virus which curtails its spread.
Similar drugs have been found before, but molnupiravir is unique in that its “wolf in sheep’s clothing” act is effective against a wide range of viruses.
And while MSD is currently focused on using molnupiravir to fight Covid, Dr Herath acknowledged its potential as a multi-virus weapon.
“We have laboratory data that suggests molnupiravir is effective against a multitude of RNA viruses, including influenza, and we are looking at how we approach those development programmes,” Dr Herath said. “It’s interesting from that perspective because in the laboratory it doesn’t seem to be particularly wedded to one particular virus that it acts against.”