October 19, 2021 by adminaws
ACT-A wants to raise $22.8 billion to buy vaccines, drugs and tests
Sees a “risk deal” for 28 million courses of COVID pill by December
Wants to enable access to new COVID drugs for 120 million people
Program to buy pills for critical patients, oxygen
It wants to buy 1 billion tests for poorer countries
BRUSSELS, Oct. 19 (Reuters) – A World Health Organization-led program to ensure poorer countries have fair access to COVID-19 vaccines, tests and treatments aims to provide antiviral drugs to patients with mild symptoms for just $10 per course, a design paper seen by Reuters says.
Merck & Co’s (MRK.N) experimental pill molnupiravir is likely one of the drugs, and other drugs are being developed to treat mild patients.
The document, which outlines the goals of the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-A) through September next year, says the program aims to deliver about 1 billion COVID-19 tests to poorer countries and purchase drugs to deliver up to 120. million patients worldwide, of the approximately 200 million new cases it estimates in the next 12 months.
The plans show how the WHO plans to bolster supplies of drugs and tests at a relatively low cost after losing the vaccine race to rich countries that controlled a huge chunk of the world’s supply, leaving the world’s poorest countries with little to no shots. to have.
An ACT-A spokesperson said the document, dated Oct. 13, was still a draft pending and declined to comment on its contents before it became final. The document will also be sent to world leaders ahead of a G20 summit in Rome later this month.
The ACT-A is asking the G20 and other donors to provide additional funding of $22.8 billion through September 2022, which will be needed to buy and distribute vaccines, drugs and tests to poorer countries and to bridge the huge gap in the economy. supply between rich and less developed countries. Donors have pledged $18.5 billion to the program so far.
The financial requests are based on detailed estimates of the price of drugs, treatments and tests, which will represent the largest cost of the program in addition to the cost of vaccine distribution.
Although molnupiravir is not explicitly mentioned, the ACT-A document expects to pay $10 dollars per course for “new oral antivirals for mild/moderate patients.”
Other pills are being developed to treat mild patients, but molnupiravir is the only one that has shown positive results in late-stage studies so far. The ACT-A is in talks with Merck & Co and generic drug manufacturers to purchase the drug. read more
The price is very low compared to the $700 per course the United States has agreed to pay for 1.7 million courses of the treatment.
However, a study conducted by Harvard University estimated that molnupiravir could cost about $20 dollars if produced by generic drug manufacturers, with the price potentially dropping to $7.7 with optimized production.
Merck & Co. has licensing agreements with eight Indian manufacturers of generic drugs.
The ACT-A document says the goal is to close a deal by the end of November to secure the supply of an “oral outpatient drug,” which should be available by the first quarter of next year.
The money raised would initially be used to “support the procurement of up to 28 million courses of treatment for mild to moderate patients at the highest risk over the next 12 months, subject to product availability, clinical guidance and volumes changing with the evolution of needs”, the document says, noting that this volume would be secured under a pre-purchase agreement.
Larger quantities of new oral antivirals to treat mild patients are also expected to be purchased at a later stage, the document said.
An additional 4.3 million courses of recycled COVID-19 pills to treat critically ill patients are expected to be purchased at a cost of $28 per course, the document says, without naming a specific drug.
The ACT-A also plans to meet the essential medical oxygen needs of 6-8 million severe and critical patients by September 2022.
TO TEST
In addition, the program plans to invest massively in COVID-19 diagnostics to at least double the number of tests performed in poorer countries, defined as low-income and lower-middle-income countries.
Of the $22.8 billion that ACT-A plans to raise in the next 12 months, about one-third, and most of it, will be spent on diagnostics, the document said.
Currently, poor countries perform an average of about 50 tests per 100,000 people per day, compared to 750 tests in richer countries. The ACT-A wants to bring the test rate in poorer states to a minimum of 100 tests per 100,000.
That means delivering about 1 billion tests in the next 12 months, about 10 times more than the ACT-A has procured to date, the document shows.
The bulk of diagnostics would consist of rapid antigen tests at a cost of about $3, and only 15% would be spent on purchasing molecular tests, which are more accurate but take longer to deliver results and are estimated to be about $17 fee, including delivery costs, the document shows.
The push-on tests aim to narrow the gap between rich and poor, as only 0.4% of the roughly 3 billion tests reported around the world have been conducted in poor countries, the document said.
It would also help detect possible new variants earlier, which tend to multiply when infections are widespread, and are therefore more likely in the countries with lower vaccination rates.
The document underlines that “access to vaccines is highly inequitable with coverage ranging from 1% to over 70% depending largely on a country’s wealth.”
The program aims to vaccinate at least 70% of the eligible population in all countries by the middle of next year, in line with WHO targets.
Reporting by Francesco Guarascio @fraguarascio Editing by Susan Fenton
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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