Pfizer CEO Says Anti-Covid Pill May Be Available By End Of 2021

CNBC: Pfizer At-Home Covid Pill Could Be Available By Year-End, CEO Albert Bourla Says
Pfizer’s experimental oral drug to treat Covid-19 at the first sign of illness could be available by the end of the year, CEO Albert Bourla told CNBC on Tuesday. The company, which developed the first authorized Covid-19 vaccine in the U.S. with German drugmaker BioNTech, began in March an early stage clinical trial testing a new antiviral therapy for the disease. The drug is part of a class of medicines called protease inhibitors and works by inhibiting an enzyme that the virus needs to replicate in human cells. (Lovelace Jr., 4/27)

Fox News: Pfizer CEO Predicts Coronavirus Oral Antiviral Pill Ready ‘By End Of Year’
Albert Bourla, chairman and CEO of Pfizer, said Tuesday he hopes the company's coronavirus oral antiviral therapeutic in early-stage trials will be ready by the end of the year. "...If all goes well and we implement the same speed that we did so far and we are and if regulators also do the same and they are, I hope by the end of the year," Bourla told CNBC co-hosts, per a transcript, when questioned over a timeline. Fox News requested confirmation on the timeline from Pfizer this week, though a spokeswoman wouldn’t pinpoint an answer without data in hand. (Rivas, 4/27)

In other news about vaccine development and research —

CNBC: One Dose Of A Covid Vaccine Can Almost Halve Transmission, Study Finds
A single dose of a coronavirus vaccine can reduce transmission within a household by up to half, a study by Public Health England has found. People who do become infected with the coronavirus three weeks after receiving a single dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech or AstraZeneca-University of Oxford vaccine were between 38% and 49% less likely to pass the virus on to their household contacts than those who were unvaccinated, the PHE study found. (Ellyatt, 4/28)

CIDRAP: Study: Common Irritable Bowel Drug Blunts COVID-19 Vaccine Response
A UK study yesterday in the journal Gut found that the common inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) drug infliximab blunts COVID-19 vaccine response after one dose. The findings come from the CLARITY study, which assessed COVID-19 infection and vaccination in 6,935 patients who have IBD, including Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, from 92 hospitals from September to December 2020. (4/27)

WJCT 89.9 FM Jacksonville: COVID Vaccines May Not Be Effective For Organ Transplant Patients, Research Suggests 
Preliminary research conducted on a small sample size suggests that certain COVID-19 vaccines, including Pfizer and Moderna, may not be effective for solid organ transplant patients and others with compromised immune systems. A team of Mayo Clinic researchers studied seven organ transplant recipients diagnosed with COVID-19 at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville six to 44 days after receiving the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines. Two patients had received just one dose and the remaining five had received both doses. (Rivers, 4/27)

ABC News: Children As Young As 6 Months Old Now In COVID-19 Vaccine Trials
As nearly 140 million American adults have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and we inch closer to herd immunity, vaccine makers Pfizer and Moderna have moved on to the next phase of the fight against the virus: studying to see if the vaccine will be safe and effective for children. “Children under 18 make up 85 million people in [the] U.S. – about 20% of the population,” Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, professor of pediatrics, epidemiology and population health at Stanford University, told ABC News. “Getting them vaccinated is a major contribution to reducing transmission of virus.” (Kuang, Delawala and Yang, 4/27)

CBS News: CDC Reiterates Guidance On Safety Of COVID-19 Vaccines For Pregnant People 
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday there is "growing evidence" about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines during pregnancy, and it reiterated its guidance on vaccinations for pregnant people, after it was asked to clarify a remark the CDC director made Friday about the recommendation. "If facing decisions about whether to receive a COVID-19 vaccine while pregnant, people should consider risk of exposure to COVID-19, the increased risk of severe infection while pregnant, the known benefits of vaccination, and the limited but growing evidence about the safety of COVID-19 vaccine during pregnancy," a CDC spokesperson said in a statement emailed to CBS News. (Smith, 4/27)

The New York Times: How Pfizer Makes Its Covid-19 Vaccine 
Inside this facility in Chesterfield, Missouri, trillions of bacteria are producing tiny loops of DNA containing coronavirus genes — the raw material for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. It’s the start of a complex manufacturing and testing process that takes 60 days and involves Pfizer facilities in three states. The result will be millions of doses of the vaccine, frozen and ready to ship. (4/28)