China acquires new American tool in raging battle to stop COVID-19

5 January 2023

Merck & Co’s (NYSE: MRK) Lagevrio (molnupiravir) has been granted emergency approval by China’s National Medical Products Administration.

The oral antiviral drug will be the latest treatment to help China cope with the current outbreak of COVID-19 in the Asian country, and will be distributed by Chinese state-owned company Sinopharm, which struck a deal with Merck last year.

China is seeing cases of the virus surge after abandoning its ‘zero COVID’ strategy in December. Other medicines - including the antiviral treatment Paxlovid (nirmatrelvir/ritonavir) from another US company, Pfizer - have been in short supply amid the outbreak.

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