The U.S. will invest $3.2 billion into developing antiviral medicines to combat COVID-19 and other viruses with pandemic potential, the Health and Human Services Department said on June 17.

Dubbed the Antiviral Program for Pandemics, the effort led by U.S. health agencies will support the discovery, development and production of antiviral treatments for COVID-19 and future viral threats, HHS said.

The collaboration, bringing together the National Institutes of Health and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, aims to develop antivirals that could be taken at home soon after someone gets sick. That’s a method used with Tamiflu, a pill that targets influenza. An oral antiviral is seen as the gold standard to ease the burden of disease on health systems, domestically and abroad.

The program will help advance antiviral candidates through early-stage safety studies, positioning them to be able to quickly move into late-stage efficacy studies. Of the funds allocated to the effort, $1 billion will go to conducting pre-clinical and clinical trials, $300 million will go to research and lab support, and nearly $700 million will be directed to Barda and NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases unit to aid with development and manufacturing.

New treatments

Though vaccines are significantly slowing the spread of COVID in wealthy nations, doctors around the world need treatments that can be easily deployed to those who get sick.

Earlier this month, the U.S. entered a $1.2 billion agreement with Merck & Co. for 1.7 million courses of its experimental antiviral pill, called molnupiravir, should it be authorized by U.S. regulators.

Developed with Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, the oral treatment is in a final-stage study of non-hospitalized patients with confirmed cases of COVID-19 and at least one risk factor associated with poor disease outcomes.

Merck expects data from the trial in September or October, executives said in April, and could approach the Food and Drug Administration for authorization within the year.

“Having additional FDA-authorized antiviral medicines available within a year would be a major breakthrough in ongoing efforts to combat COVID-19 and protect the public,” HHS said in statement.