PARIS—France has canceled its order for Merck & Co.’s COVID-19 antiviral drug following disappointing trial data and hopes instead to receive Pfizer’s competing drug before the end of January, the health minister said on Wednesday.
France is the first country to publicly say it has canceled an order for the Merck treatment after the company released data in late November suggesting its drug was markedly less effective than previously thought, reducing hospitalizations and deaths in its clinical trial of high-risk individuals by about 30 percent.
