Prognosis
Novartis’s Move to Covid Market Opens the Door for New Type of Drug
- Applying to FDA will be a test of Swiss partner’s technology
- Molecular Partners’s shares have gained by a third this year
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Novartis AG is taking a big step off the sidelines of the pandemic, seeking emergency approval for an experimental Covid-19 medicine. The move carries even greater import for the Swiss drugmaker’s partner, a small biotech that has struggled to get its medicines to market.
What once looked like an also-ran therapy now has a chance to compete with antiviral pills from Pfizer Inc. and Merck & Co. The key to its potential is the technology from Novartis’s collaborator, Molecular Partners AG, which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will now assess.