
David Perlin (L) and Charles Rice
'Vaccines alone are insufficient': Merck, Aligos work with academic experts to find Covid antivirals as part of $65M NIH grant
Merck is throwing its weight behind a new consortium of academic, nonprofit and biotech scientists to discover oral antivirals that can fight Covid-19 — and pandemic viruses of the future.
The NIH and the NIAID will provide $65 million over three years to fund the The Metropolitan AntiViral Drug Accelerator, or MAVDA, as it works to find and test small molecule drugs to target coronaviruses. With an emphasis on SARS-CoV-2 and one or more select RNA viruses with pandemic potential, the goal is to make oral treatments that can be given in an outpatient setting.
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