Ivermectin is the bad horse medicine. The new Merck drug is the good horse medicine, just 16 times as expensive as the US government played hardball with Merck and went to the mat on the price negotiation.
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/...s-what-it-costs-make-govt-financed-covid-pill
Merck Charging US 40 Times What It Costs To Make Govt-Financed COVID Pill[/b]
BY TYLER DURDEN
WEDNESDAY, OCT 06, 2021 - 07:00 AM
Merck's new 'not Ivermectin' Covid-19 treatment, molnupiravir, costs $17.74 to produce - yet the company is charging the US government $712 for the treatment - a 40x markup, according to The Intercept, citing a report issued last week by the Harvard School of Public Health and King’s College Hospital in London.
The pill, originally developed using US government funds as a possible treatment for Venezuelan equine encephalitis,[/b] cut the risk of hospitalization and death in half in a randomized trial of 775 adults with mild/moderate Covid who were considered at high risk for disease due to comorbidities such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease. The trial was stopped early so the company could apply for and emergency use authorization (EUA). The drug did not benefit patients who were already hospitalized with severe disease.
Yet, as Quartz points out, only Merck and Ridgeback will profit from the new antiviral - which they say "could be one of the most lucrative drugs ever," bringing in as much as $7 billion by the end of this year alone.
Despite its initial investment, the U.S. government seems to be facing a steep markup in prices. In June, the government signed a $1.2 billion contract with Merck to supply 1.7 million courses of the medication at the $712 price. The transaction is due to take place as soon as molnupiravir receives emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration.
Good government advocates are pointing out that because federal agencies spent at least $29 million on the drug’s development, the government has the obligation to ensure that the medicine is affordable. “The public funded this drug, and therefore the public has some rights, including the rights you have it available under reasonable terms,” said Luis Gil Abinader, senior researcher at Knowledge Ecology International. -The Intercept ...
If only there were another option for mild-moderate Covid-19 cases that was inexpensive and used around the world for decades with an extremely positive drug safety profile.
We're just going to leave this here (as we noted last month):
Widely prescribed anti-parasitic Ivermectin (also made by Merck) has shown massive efficacy worldwide in the treatment of mild and moderate cases of Covid-19, plus as a prophylactic. India's Uttar Pradesh province, with a population of over 200 million, says that widespread early use of Ivermectin 'helped keep positivity [and] deaths low.'