U.S. to expand access to COVID antiviral pills
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Biden administration is planning to widen access to COVID-19 oral antiviral therapies by doubling the number of locations at which they are available, the White House said on Tuesday, Reuters reported.
Starting this week, the pharmacies enrolled in the federal pharmacy program for antiviral distribution will be able to directly order the free drugs from the U.S. government. Currently they depend on states to access the pills.
Under the current system, the treatments are available in around 20,000 sites, and the administration expects to increase the direct distribution to more than 30,000 sites soon and 40,000 locations over the coming weeks.
The U.S. regulators authorized the oral COVID-19 therapies developed by Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) and Merck (NYSE:MRK)/ Ridgeback Biotherapeutics late last year, paving the way to introduce a critical tool in the fight against the virus.
However, the initial rollout of the drugs has been slower than expected amid a lack of demand. Data shows that the U.S. government has distributed 1.5 million courses, but over 500,000 treatment courses were still available at pharmacies through the first half of April.
âThereâs more room to save more lives by getting this medication to more people,â a senior administration official said on a press call.
The government also plans to expand its "Test to Treat" initiative adding more federally supported test sites where Americans can undergo COVID-19 testing and receive free pills if their tests turn positive.
CVS Health (CVS), Walgreens (WBA) and Kroger (KR) are among some of the operators running Test to Treat sites.
Read about the latest projections made by data analytics firm Airfinity on the future sales of oral COVID-19 therapies.