Biden Administration Working On Wider Availability Of COVID-19 Pills: WSJ

The Biden administration is expected to outline plans for easier access to COVID-19 treatments. According to some health leaders and patient advocates, oral therapies are too difficult to obtain despite a federal program to help make them more widely available.

The administration has heavily touted vaccines to reduce the risk of serious illness from the infection. 

Officials also have been urging greater use of two pills - Pfizer Inc's PFE Paxlovid and Merck & Co Inc's MRK and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics LP's Lagevrio (molnupiravir).

To expand access to the pills, the administration in the coming weeks is planning to double the 20,000 pharmacies, community health centers, and hospitals where the antivirals are currently available, writes Wall Street Journal.

According to a senior administration official, pharmacies would also be allowed to order free antivirals from the federal government.

The federal government agreed to buy up to 20 million courses of Paxlovid and has enough funding for the order, a third senior administration official said. 

The U.S. bought 3.1 million courses of the Merck-Ridgeback drug and has allocated more than 2.6 million courses to states and territories so far.

In the coming weeks, the administration will decide how federally supported sites can best be expanded and scaled if needed during any potential future surge in cases, one of the officials said.

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