Covid-19 man­u­fac­tur­ing roundup: Ri­ton­avir pro­duc­tion to reach 100M dos­es an­nu­al­ly; Schumer calls for a boost to do­mes­tic vac­cine sup­ply

Amid the spike in pos­i­tive Covid-19 cas­es thanks to the Omi­cron vari­ant, As­cle­tis will ex­pand its pro­duc­tion of the oral tablet ri­ton­avir to pro­duce 100 mil­lion dos­es a year. And the com­pa­ny is ready to in­crease that num­ber if the mar­ket calls for that.

ASC10 tar­gets RNA de­pen­dent RNA poly­merase, while ASC11 tar­gets 3-chy­motrypsin-like pro­tease. As­cle­tis cur­rent­ly owns the on­ly au­tho­rized ri­ton­avir tablet in Chi­na, which was ap­proved in Sep­tem­ber. A low dose ri­ton­avir oral tablet (100mg) is a com­po­nent of Paxlovid, Pfiz­er’s drug that re­cent­ly land­ed a con­tract with the Bel­gian gov­ern­ment for 10,000 cours­es.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER