(Reuters) -Merck & Co Inc said on Friday its experimental COVID-19 pill reduced the risk of hospitalization and death by 30% in a study, according to data from all the patients enrolled in a late-stage study.
The company said the data on the drug molnupiravir, developed with Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, had been submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ahead of a meeting of its expert advisers on Tuesday.
A planned interim analysis of the data last month showed that 7.3% of those given molnupiravir twice a day for five days were hospitalized and none had died by 29 days after the treatment. That compared with a hospitalization rate of 14.1% for placebo patients.
In the updated data, 6.8% of those given molnupiravir were hospitalized and one person died, while the other placebo group had a hospitalization rate of 9.7%.
(Reporting by Manas Mishra in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)
