Merck's free licensing of molnupiravir (to the Medicines Patent Pool, not WHO, by the way) will end when the pandemic is declared no longer an emergency by WHO. Considering how short patent terms are, this will probably be right at the end of its patent life anyway, of course. (I'm assuming WHO will be slow to un-declare an emergency, given that they're part of the notoriously dilatory United Nations.)
I think the weird "They're harming beagles!" freakout by some politicians is especially misguided because, as you mention, Leishmaniasis research can (and presumably will) also be used to protect dogs.
I did have "to WHO" in the headline, didn't I? My mistake. I noted Medicines Patent Pool later on. Like you I would agree that WHO will not be in any hurry to declare the pandemic over--nor do I think the pandemic will meaningfully end any time soon. Even so, Merck has a history of giving drugs away for free. Ivermectin is one of them, actually, that they've been providing free of charge or at cost to developing countries for decades; in that case, it's for use as an antiparasitic, a treatment area where the drug has strong evidence supporting its use. I suspect that if the need continues, but the pandemic ends, while molnupiravir is still on-patent, Merck will do the compassionate thing.
I like that video a lot! I think it captures a really comprehensive view of the issues surrounding ivermectin in COVID-19. I like that it covers also how the preclinical work has demonstrated the absence of a clear mechanism for any proposed effect, with prior evidence of some mechanism being dependent on the use of a cell line that doesn't reasonably model human lung cells (vero cells, which are monkey kidney cells).
Merck's free licensing of molnupiravir (to the Medicines Patent Pool, not WHO, by the way) will end when the pandemic is declared no longer an emergency by WHO. Considering how short patent terms are, this will probably be right at the end of its patent life anyway, of course. (I'm assuming WHO will be slow to un-declare an emergency, given that they're part of the notoriously dilatory United Nations.)
I think the weird "They're harming beagles!" freakout by some politicians is especially misguided because, as you mention, Leishmaniasis research can (and presumably will) also be used to protect dogs.
I just discovered two YouTube videos by medical researcher Susan Oliver (https://www.unsw.edu.au/staff/susan-oliver) explaining why ivermectin has not been shown to have value in treating COVID-19. Part 1 is here: https://youtu.be/-zWK_-4mfXs
I did have "to WHO" in the headline, didn't I? My mistake. I noted Medicines Patent Pool later on. Like you I would agree that WHO will not be in any hurry to declare the pandemic over--nor do I think the pandemic will meaningfully end any time soon. Even so, Merck has a history of giving drugs away for free. Ivermectin is one of them, actually, that they've been providing free of charge or at cost to developing countries for decades; in that case, it's for use as an antiparasitic, a treatment area where the drug has strong evidence supporting its use. I suspect that if the need continues, but the pandemic ends, while molnupiravir is still on-patent, Merck will do the compassionate thing.
I like that video a lot! I think it captures a really comprehensive view of the issues surrounding ivermectin in COVID-19. I like that it covers also how the preclinical work has demonstrated the absence of a clear mechanism for any proposed effect, with prior evidence of some mechanism being dependent on the use of a cell line that doesn't reasonably model human lung cells (vero cells, which are monkey kidney cells).