Speaker 1: It's Monday, March one. I'm Oscar and Mirrors from the
Speaker 1: Daily Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is reopening America.
Speaker 1: The COVID pill made by Merk has been prescribed heavily,
Speaker 1: despite some concerns. Regulators and doctors think that the Mirk
Speaker 1: pill should be one of the last options in treating
Speaker 1: COVID because of concerns that it could cause birth defects
Speaker 1: and cause more variance to form. But with Fiser's pill
Speaker 1: and limited supply, many doctors have turned to maul new Peravier.
Speaker 1: Jared Hopkins, pharma reporter at The Wall Street Journal, joins
Speaker 1: us for what to know about the Mirk covid anti viral.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, Jared, Thanks for having me. Well,
Speaker 1: we're looking at what we got going so far as
Speaker 1: therapeutics for COVID nineteen. And there's two COVID pills out
Speaker 1: there right now, one from Fiser and one from MRK.
Speaker 1: You know, the Fiser one seems to be the pill
Speaker 1: of choice for doctors. They say that the Mark one
Speaker 1: should probably be used as a last resort, but what
Speaker 1: we're seeing is it's getting heavy, heavy usage. Uh, just
Speaker 1: some concerns because just the limited supply of the fiser pill.
Speaker 1: So Jared, help us walk through some of this. What
Speaker 1: are we seeing and what do we know about this
Speaker 1: smirk covid pill. So the mirk pill is called monopure
Speaker 1: viewer and the fiser pill is called tax lovid. And
Speaker 1: the main difference here, there's a couple of many differences,
Speaker 1: is that the mirk pill was shown in a clinical
Speaker 1: trial to be effective at reducing hospitalization and death, and
Speaker 1: the fiser pill was shown to be eight percent effective.
Speaker 1: But a big difference here is that and both pills
Speaker 1: were cleared for use back late last year. However, the
Speaker 1: fiser pill wasn't much much less supply. There is much
Speaker 1: less supply of the fiser pill. And so when physicians
Speaker 1: and when providers found themselves amidst this omicron surge, even
Speaker 1: though the fiser pill was preferred and in fact recommended
Speaker 1: by authorities, the Mirk pill is what ended up being
Speaker 1: prescribed very often because it happened to be there in stock.
Speaker 1: And here we are in mid March, and the two
Speaker 1: pills are are pretty much neck and neck in prescriptions,
Speaker 1: which is surprising to too many people. Yeah, the prescription
Speaker 1: numbers so seventy four thousand, over seventy four thousand for
Speaker 1: the mirk pill, seventy nine thousand for packs slovid the
Speaker 1: Fiser pill. So, just like you said, just neck and neck,
Speaker 1: but there are concerns with with both pills. So pack
Speaker 1: selvid the fiser one. I guess there's potential harm of
Speaker 1: mixing it with other medicines. Do we know what types
Speaker 1: of medications would cause some problems with that one? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of common medications that people take
Speaker 1: that have potential to be safety risks if they are
Speaker 1: taking in combination or mixed with pack slovid. This can
Speaker 1: be just cholesterol controlling drugs, cholesterol lowering drugs commonly known
Speaker 1: as statins, but as well as certain kids need disease
Speaker 1: and liver disease drugs as well. So these individuals, these
Speaker 1: patients might not be able to take pack sloavid. It's
Speaker 1: it's up to you know, with their doctor. However, what
Speaker 1: we've seen is that some of these interactions are actually manageable. So,
Speaker 1: for example, statins, for people who are taking statins, physicians
Speaker 1: are saying, hey, once you're done with you know, when
Speaker 1: you're taking pack sloavied, just pause your statin and take
Speaker 1: pack Slovid for those five days that pack Slobedes need
Speaker 1: to be taken, and then resume your statins after that.
Speaker 1: So it's been a little bit manageable. But because of
Speaker 1: these interactions, there are still many patients who can't take
Speaker 1: pack sloaded and therefore then the physicians are prescribing them
Speaker 1: mountuper here. So mount of peer beer is also filling
Speaker 1: this hole for patients who might not be able to
Speaker 1: get or to take pack slogan. And there's also some
Speaker 1: concerns with the Merk pail to. One among them was
Speaker 1: that it could cause a higher frequency of virus mutation
Speaker 1: is because of the way the pill works. Some other
Speaker 1: people said it could also cause birth defects. I hadn't
Speaker 1: heard that one. And they tell their male patients to,
Speaker 1: you know, either not have sex or use condoms for
Speaker 1: at least three months after the treatment. So, I mean,
Speaker 1: those are some interesting things I had not heard previously.
Speaker 1: So the merk drug actually works by inserting errors into
Speaker 1: the UH. It stops the virus by inserting errors into
Speaker 1: the genetic code of the virus. However, what was found
Speaker 1: was that in animal testing was that the drug could
Speaker 1: cause birth defects and so as a result, it's not
Speaker 1: recommended for pregnant women or women of childbearing age or
Speaker 1: interested in becoming pregnant. And as a result, men who
Speaker 1: are prescribed it are recommended to use a contraception birth
Speaker 1: control for at least three months after taking the treatment.
Speaker 1: You know that that has actually caused some positions that
Speaker 1: I talked to, that has caused some patients to forego
Speaker 1: that treatment, some men who with wented. So there are
Speaker 1: some concerns. The concerns from physicians are, hey, we've got
Speaker 1: a drug here that is effective, so not as effective
Speaker 1: as as another pillfis your one, and we have some
Speaker 1: risks here, so why not go with Paxlovian instead. And
Speaker 1: that is why paxlovid is is what is recommended by
Speaker 1: the FDA, the National Institutes of Health, and the Infectious
Speaker 1: Disease Society of America. They say, go with pax that's
Speaker 1: the primary one. If that's not available, then recommend antibody treatments.
Speaker 1: If those aren't available or people can't take those, they
Speaker 1: even want you to take a different anti viral from Gilead.
Speaker 1: And if that's not available, then you get to monopere here.
Speaker 1: But in the meantime, you know, the government has already
Speaker 1: bought millions of courses of both paxelovid and and the monopervier,
Speaker 1: so we're going to have stock of that. There's also
Speaker 1: the Test to Treat program that present by and has
Speaker 1: started with all of this. Basically, if you test positive
Speaker 1: at a pharmacy or clinic or whatever, you can be
Speaker 1: sent home with some pills. And as you mentioned you
Speaker 1: it was just in the absence of the pack selvid,
Speaker 1: the fiser pill, this other pill could be prescribed just
Speaker 1: as much as we've seen already. So just some interesting
Speaker 1: things to know about all of this. Jared Hopkins farm
Speaker 1: a reporter at the Wall Street Journal, thank you very
Speaker 1: much for joining us, Thanks for having me. I'm Oscar
Speaker 1: Ramirez and this has been reopening America. Don't forget that.
Speaker 1: For today's big news stories, you can check me out
Speaker 1: of the Daily Dive podcast every Monday through Friday, so
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Speaker 1: your podcast.