Ef­fi­ca­cy of Pfiz­er's Covid pill holds up in fi­nal analy­sis, re­duc­ing risk of hos­pi­tal­iza­tion or death by al­most 90%

The dras­tic dif­fer­ence in ef­fi­ca­cy for Mer­ck’s Covid-19 pill be­tween in­ter­im and fi­nal analy­ses — from a 50% rel­a­tive re­duc­tion in hos­pi­tal­iza­tions and deaths at the in­ter­im to just 30% in the fi­nal re­sults — had some wor­ry­ing that the Pfiz­er pill’s ear­ly suc­cess for adults at high risk of hos­pi­tal­iza­tion might al­so be more mut­ed in the fi­nal re­sults.

But that wasn’t the case ear­ly Tues­day as Pfiz­er said that fi­nal da­ta avail­able from the more than 2,200 high-risk pa­tients en­rolled in its tri­al con­firmed pri­or re­sults show­ing Paxlovid re­duced the risk of hos­pi­tal­iza­tion or death by 89% (with­in three days of symp­tom on­set) and 88% (with­in five days of symp­tom on­set) com­pared to place­bo. The com­pa­ny added:

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