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What Can the Pharma Industry Learn from Merck’s New Antiviral?

Merck is one of the first pharmaceutical companies to submit an antiviral candidate to the FDA for approval, signaling the beginning of a new phase of mass production of COVID treatment drugs. For Merck’s oral antiviral, molnupiravir, its optimistic success can be largely credited to its federal funding. Work on the related compound was…

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By Daniel Litwin · AntiviralLsuMerckPharmaceutical Production Pipeline
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Key takeaways

01

Merck is one of the first pharmaceutical companies to submit an antiviral candidate to the FDA for approval, signaling the beginning of a new phase of mass production of COVID treatment drugs.

02

For Merck’s oral antiviral, molnupiravir, its optimistic success can be largely credited to its federal funding.

03

Work on the related compound was…

Merck is one of the first pharmaceutical companies to submit an antiviral candidate to the FDA for approval, signaling the beginning of a new phase of mass production of COVID treatment drugs. For Merck’s oral antiviral, molnupiravir, its optimistic success can be largely credited to its federal funding. Work on the related compound was active at Emory University as far back as 2004, with millions

With that kind of federal investment, and Operation Warp Speed validating the role of the federal government in supporting critical biomedical development, we wanted to know: can the industry expect any further involvement, financial or regulatory, from the federal government around COVID treatments? Plus, as Operation Warp Speed accelerated the COVID vaccine research timeline, are there more sustainable ways to bring this level of turnaround to other parts of the pharmaceutical pipeline without lags in treatment quality or oversight?

MarketScale sourced Dr. Kishor M. Wasan, Chief Medical and Scientific Officer at Skymount Medical, for his perspective, pulling from his active research around drug production and AI. Scroll down for his various insights!

1. Do the Successes of Operation Warp Speed Validate the Support of the Federal Government?

2. How LSU Designed a Model to Speed Up the Evaluation of Drug Candidates

3. How the Pharmaceutical Pipeline can Balance Speed and Quality

About the author

Daniel Litwin
Daniel LitwinEditor, B2B Media, MarketScale

Daniel Litwin is a journalist of multiple disciplines focused on finding and telling engaging stories for B2B communities. He has interviewed executives from Fortune 500 companies including Honeywell, Microsoft, John Deere, and Chipotle, and leads editorial direction at MarketScale. Litwin hosts weekly shows and podcasts while helping develop new content approaches across the MarketScale platform. He holds a B.J. in Radio/Television Reporting/Anchoring and a B.A. in Spanish from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

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About the Expert

Daniel Litwin
Daniel Litwin

Editor, B2B Media

MarketScale

Daniel Litwin is a journalist of multiple disciplines focused on finding and telling engaging stories for B2B communities. He has interviewed executives from Fortune 500 companies including Honeywell, Microsoft, John Deere, and Chipotle, and leads editorial direction at MarketScale. Litwin hosts weekly shows and podcasts while helping develop new content approaches across the MarketScale platform. He holds a B.J. in Radio/Television Reporting/Anchoring and a B.A. in Spanish from the University of Missouri-Columbia.