4Q sales of Merck’s Covid antiviral topped $950M

Plus: New Zealand begins reopening next month

Pharmaceutical giant Merck reported its quarterly earnings earlier today, which included updates about molnupiravir, the Covid antiviral drug that the company co-developed with Ridgeback therapeutics. Merck says that within “the next few days” over 4 million courses of the drug will have been shipped around the world. In the fourth quarter of 2021 alone, Merck says that its sales of the antiviral drug were $952 million. Additionally, last week the company released data from in vitro studies of the drug suggesting that it is active against the omicron variant.   

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• Agonizing Cough of Croup Rising in Kids with COVID (Scientific American)