As Low as $25/session! Pfizer's COVID-19 Oral Drug Paxlovid Generic Drug Price Released

Recently, the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) disclosed that several generic drugmakers producing Pfizer’s covid-19 oral antiviral drug Paxlovid have agreed to pay $25 (about 169.80 RMB) or $25 per course of treatment in low- and middle-income countries. The drug is sold at a lower price. In the United States, Paxlovid is priced at about $530 for a course of treatment (5 days).

CHAI said that because it is still in the early stages of product development and has not yet obtained regulatory approval, it is temporarily unable to disclose the name of the generic drug maker that reached the above price cap.

As early as March this year, 35 pharmaceutical companies around the world reached a licensing agreement with the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP), an international non-profit organization supported by the United Nations, to produce Paxlovid generic drugs and provide them to 95 poorer countries around the world. According to public information, among the 35 pharmaceutical companies, there are 5 Chinese companies, namely: Desano Pharmaceuticals, Huahai Pharmaceuticals, Puluo Pharmaceuticals, Fosun Pharmaceuticals, and Kyushu Pharmaceuticals.

CHAI said the generic drugmaker will provide 4.5 million courses of Paxlovid per month to the 95 poorer countries. It's worth noting that the $25 price cap applies only if poorer countries have demand for at least 1 million courses of treatment per year. In order to guarantee the price, at least 50,000 courses of treatment need to be ordered.

At the same time, CHAI also said it plans to work with donors and governments to raise funds for advance purchase agreements for generic Paxlovid drugs to meet the needs of these countries.

Currently, Paxlovid has become an important tool in the fight against COVID-19. Clinical trials have shown that taking a five-day course of Paxlovid shortly after the onset of symptoms reduced hospitalizations in high-risk patients by about 90 percent. The results were significantly better than Merck's oral antiviral drug molnupiravir. Still, as Paxlovid became more widely used, some patients reported a return of COVID-19 symptoms after completing treatment and experiencing improvement.

It is worth noting that Merck molnupiravir and Pfizer Paxlovid are the world's first and second new crown oral drugs to receive regulatory approval, respectively. In China, Paxlovid has received conditional approval in February 2022 for the treatment of adults with mild to moderate novel coronavirus pneumonia (COVID-19) with high risk factors for progression to severe disease, such as advanced age, chronic kidney disease Patients with severe high-risk factors such as disease, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and chronic lung disease.

In March 2022, the National Health and Medical Commission released the "New Coronary Virus Pneumonia Diagnosis and Treatment Program (Trial Ninth Edition)", which clearly recommended Paxlovid as an antiviral treatment program. On March 22, the first batch of the new crown treatment drug Paxlovid that arrived in China was sent to all parts of the country to support local anti-epidemic operations. Earlier this month, Paxlovid was put into use in Shanghai elderly care institutions.

In addition, according to public reports, MPP and 27 pharmaceutical companies reached an agreement in January this year to produce and supply generics of Merck molnupiravir to 105 countries or regions around the world. Among these 27 pharmaceutical companies, 5 are Chinese pharmaceutical companies, namely: Fosun Pharma, Langhua Pharma, Longze Pharma, Borui Pharma, and Desano Pharma.

In poorer countries, a course of generic molnupiravir is expected to cost about $20; in the United States, by comparison, Merck costs about $700 for a course of molnupiravir.

According to the first quarter report of 2022, Pfizer Paxlovid's Q1 revenue in 2022 was US$1.47 billion, which was lower than expected; Merck's molnupiravir's Q1 revenue in 2022 was as high as US$3.2 billion, which was much higher than expected.