Japanese drugmaker Shionogi's Covid-19 pill Xocova, also known as S-217622. - Reuters
TOKYO (Bloomberg): Shionogi & Co’s experimental Covid-19 treatment Xocova failed to win the backing of health experts in Japan who said there wasn’t enough data to show the medicine’s efficacy.
The panel members didn’t recommend that Japan’s health ministry authorise emergency use of the therapy and said there was a need to continue discussion on it, Hiroshi Kiyota, chairman of the expert committee in a briefing on Wednesday.
So far, Japan has two pills to fight the coronavirus and Shionogi’s therapy was seeking to the third option. The health ministry relies on the panel’s decision to give the approval.
Approval for Shionogi’s medicine was keenly watched as it is easier to take than the two currently available drugs from US pharmaceutical companies.
A course of treatment consists of seven pills over five days, significantly fewer than Pfizer Inc’s Paxlovid and Merck & Co’s Lagevrio, which require between 30 pills and 40 pills over the same time period.
