An antiviral pill to treat COVID-19 should – subject to regulatory approval – be available early next year, the UK boss of Pfizer has told Sky News.

The US drugs giant announced last week that the pill had been shown to cut the risk of hospitalisation or death from the virus by 89% and Britain has already ordered 250,000 courses of the treatment.

Ben Osborn, country manager for Pfizer UK, told Sky’s Ian King Live that following the trial results, the company was “working at real pace with regulators around the world and in particular in the UK here with the MHRA [Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency]”.

“We expect to be filing in the near future – in the coming weeks – and then I would hope, subject to their approval, we may see this medicine being available very early in 2022.”

Mr Osborn said the company had already been working “at scale” for some time at manufacturing the treatment, as it had previously done with its vaccine “so that we’ll make sure we’re ready for any forthcoming regulatory approval”.

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