US-based pharmaceutical major Pfizer`s Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla said that the company`s Covid-19 oral antiviral pill, which is in early-stage trials, could be ready by the end of the year, the media reported. According to CNBC, the company, which developed the first authorised Covid-19 vaccine in the US with German drugmaker BioNTech, began an early-stage clinical trial for testing a new antiviral therapy for Covid-19 in March.

The drug is part of a class of medicines called protease inhibitors and works by inhibiting an enzyme that the virus needs to replicate in human cells. "If clinical trials go well and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves it, the drug could be distributed across the US by the end of the year," Bourla told CNBC. Protease inhibitors are used to treat other viral pathogens such as HIV and hepatitis C, the report said.