COVID-19: Health confirms that it buys a new drug from Pfizer

The Minister of Health, Carolina Darias, has confirmed to the extraordinary plenary session of the Interterritorial Council of the National Health System (CISNS) the end of the negotiation with Pfizer and the purchase of the Paxlovid drug against COVID-19.

“Great news, because we are going to have another weapon to fight the virus,” said Darias, while explaining that, with the information available on Paxlovid, in certain cases, this drug has shown a reduction of 89% in risk of COVID-19-related hospitalization or death from any cause compared to placebo within three days of symptom onset.

This drug has been under evaluation by a centralized procedure by the EMA since November 19, 2021 and its authorization is scheduled for within a few weeks.

The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, had announced on January 10 the signing of a bilateral purchase agreement with Pfizer to obtain 344,000 complete treatments. It is a one-year contract that will be added to the centralized joint purchase that we will carry out with the EU.

The Minister explained that, in order to ensure the equitable supply of this medicine, according to established prioritization criteria, the AEMPS will carry out a controlled distribution through the Management of Medicines in Special Situations application.

The procedure will be established with the Autonomous Communities and Cities, as well as the prioritization criteria on which they are already working with a group of experts for the rest of the active drugs against COVID-19.