Inside the race to find a Covid-19 treatment pill

An experimental COVID-19 treatment pill, called molnupiravir and being developed by Merck & Co Inc and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics LP, is seen in this undated handout photo. [Reuters]

In early 2020, as a new deadly coronavirus began spreading around the world, Pfizer Inc (PFE.N) assembled what it called a “SWAT team” of scientists and chemists to identify a potential treatment to fight COVID-19.

The U.S. pharmaceutical giant, which had begun exploring a vaccine, also wanted to produce a pill that could stop the infection from progressing, similar to how the widely-used Tamiflu drug fights influenza. The team scoured Pfizer’s library of molecules looking for unused compounds to help jumpstart the process, and quickly identified a promising candidate.