Sacks @ 00:37:34Right
health
The U.S. FDA will grant authorization/approval for the new oral COVID-19 antiviral pills from Pfizer and Merck by the end of the week following this Dec 23, 2021 recording (i.e., by December 31, 2021).
these new oral Covid antiviral pills that are coming out from Pfizer and Merck. The FDA is supposed to be approving them by the end of this week.View on YouTube
Explanation
The prediction was that the U.S. FDA would grant authorization/approval for the new oral COVID-19 antiviral pills from Pfizer and Merck by December 31, 2021.
What happened:
- The FDA issued an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for Pfizer’s oral antiviral Paxlovid on December 22, 2021. (fda.gov)
- The FDA issued an EUA for Merck’s oral antiviral molnupiravir on December 23, 2021. (fda.gov)
EUAs are precisely the form of regulatory authorization expected for these COVID-19 treatments at that time, and both were granted well before the December 31, 2021 deadline implied in the normalized prediction.
Because both Pfizer and Merck oral antivirals received FDA authorization by the specified time window, Sacks’s prediction is right.