Australia’s medicines regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Authority (TGA), has provisionally approved two oral medications to treat COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus—Paxlovid by Pfizer and Lagevrio by Merck Sharp and Dohme.
They are the first oral treatments for COVID-19 to be approved for adults in Australia who do not need oxygen therapy, but “who are at increased risk of progression to hospitalisation or death,” the TGA said in a release on Thursday.