About 250,000 courses of COVID pill Paxlovid being administered per week - Pfizer CEO

[September 27, 2023]  (Reuters) - Pfizer Inc's chief executive said on Tuesday that almost 250,000 courses of the drugmaker's oral antiviral COVID-19 treatment Paxlovid were being administered per week as cases surged in the United States.

Speaking at the Cantor Fitzgerald Annual Healthcare Conference, Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla said the company is still uncertain about when Paxlovid, which is currently being distributed by the government, will receive approval to be sold in the U.S. commercial market.

Paxlovid, taken for five days beginning shortly after onset of symptoms, is used to treat adults at high risk of hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19.

Bourla, however, said Pfizer is ready to supply its COVID-19 vaccines with a smooth transition to the commercial market.

"There is enough product that has been already manufactured and we keep manufacturing," Bourla said. "We are very confident that the market will be very well supplied."

In the first week after updated COVID-19 vaccines became available in the U.S., there have been hiccups with its rollout as people have reported being turned away from pharmacies for the shots.

Paxlovid, Pfizer's anti-viral medication to treat the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), is displayed in this picture illustration taken October 7, 2022. A morning and an evening does consists of one white 100-milligram tablet of Ritonavir and two pink 150-milligram tablets of PF-07321332. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay/Illustration/File Photo

Pfizer has sold nearly 24 million courses of Paxlovid to the U.S. government, which has distributed only about 15 million courses so far, according to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services data.

According to IQVIA data published by research analysts, the oral antiviral COVID-19 treatment Paxlovid hit around 217,000 prescriptions in the U.S. in the week of Sept. 1, but has dropped since then.

(Reporting by Sriparna Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Shweta Agarwal)

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