This Friday, the Pfizer laboratory announced that a clinical trial on its anticovid pill – the first of its kind – showed high effectiveness.

The drug called Paxlovid was able to lower the risk of hospitalization and death by 89% among adult COVID-19 patients at high risk of developing severe forms of the disease, Pfizer said.

These interim clinical trial results are so good that the US lab said it would stop recruiting new people for the trial.

It added that it would send the data to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as soon as possible as part of its “ongoing submission” to obtain authorization for emergency use.

“Today’s news is a real game changer in global efforts to stem the devastation of this pandemic,” said Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla.

“These data suggest that our oral antiviral candidate, if approved or licensed by regulatory authorities, has the potential to save patients’ lives, reduce the severity of COVID-19 infections, and eliminate up to nine out of 10 hospitalizations,” Bourla added.

The trial’s primary analysis evaluated data from 1,219 adults in North and South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.

Several laboratories are working on oral antivirals that mimic the influenza drug Tamiflu and prevent the disease from progressing to severe stages.

Pfizer began developing its anticovid drug in March 2020, the first designed explicitly against coronavirus.