Covid-19 roundup: FDA to sign off on Mer­ck, Pfiz­er pills this week — re­port; Broad In­sti­tute finds rise of Omi­cron through CRISPR di­ag­nos­tics

The FDA may soon sign off on two new pills from Mer­ck and Pfiz­er to help treat Covid-19 be­fore those in­fect­ed end up in the hos­pi­tal, ac­cord­ing to a Bloomberg re­port.

An an­nounce­ment from the agency may come as ear­ly as Wednes­day, ac­cord­ing to three Bloomberg sources, which would cre­ate more op­tions for those who are un­vac­ci­nat­ed and need quick and ear­ly treat­ment.

Most re­cent­ly, the FDA’s an­timi­cro­bial drugs ad­vi­so­ry com­mit­tee on Tues­day vot­ed 13-10 in fa­vor of the Mer­ck pill’s ben­e­fits out­weigh­ing the risks for adults with­in 5 days of de­vel­op­ing Covid symp­toms. But Mer­ck of­fered lit­tle ex­pla­na­tion for why its po­ten­tial Covid-19 an­tivi­ral was less ef­fec­tive in re­duc­ing Covid hos­pi­tal­iza­tions and deaths in a full analy­sis of a Phase III tri­al ver­sus an in­ter­im look, and mu­ta­ge­n­e­sis con­cerns re­main.

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