COVID-19
We’ve been committed to developing an effective response to the COVID-19 pandemic since it was first recognized. As a company with a long legacy of research in infectious disease, it is our responsibility to mobilize our scientific expertise and experience to help address the pandemic.
Advancing our investigational oral antiviral COVID-19 medicine
In collaboration with Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, we are advancing our research and development efforts for our investigational oral antiviral COVID-19 medicine. We’re hopeful that we can make a meaningful impact on the pandemic through our programs.
We are working with regulatory authorities around the world to make our oral antiviral treatment available globally. We are also continuing our research and development efforts to investigate broader uses of our oral antiviral medicine.
Our commitment to access
To accelerate broad global access, our comprehensive supply and access approach includes investing at risk to produce millions of courses of therapy. We’ve spent the past year rapidly building our capacity to produce our investigational oral antiviral candidate — the largest capacity our manufacturing team has created in under 12 months in our company's history. We reached these milestones all while working through challenging pandemic restrictions such as limited site access, remote working and travel restrictions. We are utilizing our global network, which includes manufacturing sites in nine countries across three continents.
Additionally, we have entered into advance purchase and supply agreements with the governments of several countries worldwide, pending regulatory authorizations, and are currently in discussions with additional governments. We have signed voluntary license agreements with several established Indian generic manufacturers and the Medicines Patent Pool to facilitate the availability of generic versions of our medicine to more than 100 low- and middle-income countries.
Through these wide-ranging efforts, we expect that we and other manufacturers will be able to meet the global demand for our oral antiviral candidate.
Clinical trials
Our clinical development program includes several preclinical and early-phase studies, and two Phase 3 trials, one of which is currently evaluating our anti-viral in the prevention setting:
- MOVe-AHEAD: evaluating our oral antiviral candidate for post-exposure prophylaxis in adults who reside in the same household as someone with symptomatic, laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 who has not had those signs and symptoms for more than five days.
Learn more about our COVID-19 research and find a clinical trial.
Recent Releases and Company Statements:
May 12, 2022 - MSD Announces Commitments to Pandemic Response as Part of 2nd Global COVID-19 Summit
February 19, 2022 - MSD and Ridgeback Statement on Clinical Trial of Hetero’s Generic Molnupiravir
January 28, 2022 - MSD and Ridgeback’s Molnupiravir, an Investigational Oral Antiviral COVID-19 Medicine, Demonstrated Activity Against Omicron Variant in In Vitro Studies
January 18, 2022 - MSD and Ridgeback Announce Supply Agreement with UNICEF for Molnupiravir, an Investigational Oral Antiviral COVID-19 Medicine
December 24, 2021 - MSD and Ridgeback’s Molnupiravir, an Investigational Oral Antiviral COVID-19 Treatment, Receives Special Approval for Emergency in Japan
December 23, 2021 - MSD and Ridgeback’s Molnupiravir Receives U.S. FDA Emergency Use Authorization for the Treatment of High-Risk Adults With Mild to Moderate COVID-19
December 22, 2021 - MSD and Ridgeback Announce U.K. Government to Purchase Additional 1.75 Million Courses of Molnupiravir
December 16, 2021 - MSD and Ridgeback Announce Publication of Phase 3 Study of Molnupiravir, an Investigational Oral Antiviral COVID-19 Treatment, in the New England Journal of Medicine
November 30, 2021 - MSD and Ridgeback Statement on Positive FDA Advisory Committee Vote for Investigational Oral Antiviral Molnupiravir for Treatment of Mild to Moderate COVID-19 in High Risk Adults
November 10, 2021 - MSD and Ridgeback Announce Japanese Government to Purchase 1.6 Million Courses of Molnupiravir, an Investigational Oral COVID-19 Antiviral Medicine, Upon Authorization or Approval
November 4, 2021 - MSD and Ridgeback’s Molnupiravir, an Oral COVID-19 Antiviral Medicine, Receives First Authorization in the World
Media Library Our Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic
