Merck & Co.

BELGRADE - Serbian PM Ana Brnabic and the senior vice president of the pharmaceuticals firm Merck Sharp and Dohme (MSD), Cyril Schiever, signed on Wednesday a MoU that will be significant for Serbia's future BIO4 Campus research centre.

Brnabic thanked MSD for supporting "our efforts to make Serbia a leader in biotechnology, biomedicine, bioresearch and bioinformatics."

Ljubljana – Slovenia’s national medical ethics committee has no reservations towards Lagevrio, a medicine also known as molnupiravir. The committee maintains that the drug brings significant progress in fighting the coronavirus epidemic, as it prevents a severe course of Covid-19 or death.

Updated data from the experimental pill for the treatment of COVID-19 by the American company Merck & Co show that its effectiveness is significantly lower than the original report. According to preliminary data from October, "molnupiravir" reduces the risk of death and hospitalization by 50%.

Pfizer UK managing director Ben Osborne said on Tuesday that the pharmaceutical company's Covid-19 drug, Paxlovid, could be available in the UK "very early in 2022".

Meanwhile, Merck's coronavirus pill, Molnupiravir, will be released as part of a UK trial in late November.

At the same time, the procedures for the supply of the antiviral pill of the Merck company are progressing

Tests of experimental antiviral treatment against COVID-19 by the American company "Pfizer" (Pfizer) in the form of a pill have proved so promising that they have been shortened. The reason is that it reduced by 89% the risk of hospitalization or death in adults at risk of developing a severe form of the disease.

Merck said it is asking for authorisation for the capsules to treat infected adults who are at risk of progressing to severe Covid-19 disease or hospitalisation