The Virus Outbreak Thread

@Dustcan
and my mother says that viruses don’t lay dormant, so I can expect that response from 3/4 of the people who live here.

On October 1st, Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics announced that molnupiravir (MK-4482, EIDD-2801), an investigational oral antiviral medicine, significantly reduced the risk of hospitalization or death at a planned interim analysis of the Phase 3 trial in at risk, non-hospitalized adult patients with mild-to-moderate COVID-19. They report at the interim analysis that “molnupiravir reduced the risk of hospitalization or death by approximately 50%; 7.3% of patients who received molnupiravir were either hospitalized or died through Day 29 following randomization (28/385), compared with 14.1% of placebo-treated patients (53/377); p=0.0012.” Formal publication of the data is pending.

As discussed in previous articles, submitting companies are allowed to submit suggested name candidates for consideration by the USAN Council (AMA/FDA) and INN Expert Group (WHO). Working with the -piravir suffix, we set out to create unique prefixes that were in line with the compound development team’s aspirations. The primary creative direction was to construct a name that evoked the power of Thor’s hammer – named Mjölnir.

In Marvel Comics, Thor is the Asgardian God of Thunder and a founding member of the Avengers who wields a powerful hammer called Mjölnir (pronounced Miol-neer). A variety of names alluding to Mjölnir were ultimately proposed for consideration as the official nonproprietary (generic) designation for MK-4482/EIDD-2801 and in the end molnupiravir was selected by USAN/INN. The name was formally published as a recommended INN in February 2021 and adopted as a USAN in April.