The Biden administration vows to increase COVID-19 antiviral supplies

By Brian Buntz | April 25, 2022

White House officials have a plan to ramp up the availability of Pfizer’s COVID-19 antiviral Paxlovid, according to a report from Bloomberg.

White House Covid-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha said that the administration would announce more details about the plans to make Paxlovid more widely available in the coming week.

The administration plans to launch a test-to-treat initiative that allows recently diagnosed COVID-19 patients to receive Paxlovid at no cost.

CVS, Walgreens and Walmart plan on participating in the program.

According to White House officials, the use of oral antivirals increased 103% between March 27 and April 10.

Anecdotal evidence from a handful of patients suggests that Paxlovid also may help relieve so-called long COVID-19 symptoms, according to Reuters. However, more data are needed to confirm the drug’s efficacy in reducing persistent symptoms associated with SARS-CoV-2 infections.

About The Author

Brian Buntz

The pharma and biotech editor of WTWH Media, Brian is a veteran journalist with more than 15 years of experience covering an array of life science topics, including clinical trials, drug discovery and development and medical devices. Before coming to WTWH, he served as content director focused on connected devices at Informa. In addition, Brian covered the medical device sector for 10 years at UBM. At Qmed, he overhauled the brand’s news coverage and helped to grow the site’s traffic volume dramatically. He had previously held managing editor roles on two of the company’s medical device technology publications. Connect with him on LinkedIn or email at bbuntz@wtwhmedia.com.