KENILWORTH, N.J. — Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics announced Tuesday that the United States government will exercise two of its options to purchase a total of 1.4 million additional courses of molnupiravir, an investigational oral antiviral medicine, if the medicine is granted Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) or approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), for approximately $1 billion.

With these exercised options, the U.S. government has now committed to purchase a total of approximately 3.1 million courses of molnupiravir, for approximately $2.2 billion, between authorization and early 2022. The U.S. government also has the ability to purchase more than 2 million additional courses through further options that remain in the contract. Merck is developing molnupiravir in collaboration with Ridgeback Biotherapeutics.

“We’re honored that the U.S. government has chosen to purchase more than 3 million courses of molnupiravir, our promising oral antiviral, so that molnupiravir, if authorized, will be among the vaccines and medicines available to fight COVID-19 as part of our collective efforts to bring this pandemic to an end. In light of the continued impact of the pandemic on hundreds of thousands of people every day, all of us at Merck are moving with urgency and rigor to bring molnupiravir, with its compelling data showing a significant reduction in death and hospitalizations, to patients as quickly as we can,” said Frank Clyburn, president of Human Health, Merck.

Merck and Ridgeback previously announced the submission of an EUA application to the U.S. FDA for molnupiravir for the treatment of mild-to-moderate COVID-19 in adults at risk for progressing to severe COVID-19 and/or hospitalization. The application will be discussed at the FDA’s Antimicrobial Drugs Advisory Committee meeting on Nov. 30, 2021.

This procurement of molnupiravir will be supported in whole with federal funds from the Department of Health and Human Services; Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response; Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, in collaboration with the DOD Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense (JPEO-CBRND) under contract number W911QY21C0031.