Explained | Molnupiravir, Merck’s new drug to treat COVID-19

Data shows drug halves chances of hospitalisation in patients with mild to moderate disease

Pharmaceutical major Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics announced via a press release on October 1 the early results from Phase-3 trials that its anti-viral drug with mild or moderate disease.

Placebo trials involve testing a drug on thousands of people, in which some of them get the drug and some — who are in a placebo group — do not. In the placebo arm, 53 patients of 14% were either hospitalised or had died, whereas in the group that got the drug, 28 — or 7.3% — were hospitalised or succumbed to the infection.