By Dhirendra Tripathi

Investing.com – Merck stock (NYSE:) traded nearly 3.5% higher in Thursday’s premarket trading as British regulators becoming the first to approve its Covid-19 antiviral oral drug molnupiravir as safe and effective.

That makes molnupiravir the world’s first approved oral antiviral medicine for treating the dreaded infection.

The U.K.’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency authorized molnupiravir for use in adults with mild to moderate Covid and at least one risk factor for developing severe illness. It is currently being reviewed by regulators across the U.S., Europe and other countries.

A large Bloomberg study has shown that Coronavirus infection rates in England rose to their highest point in October.

U.K. officials announced that the country has secured 480,000 molnupiravir courses last month.

Ridgeback Therapeutics and the company developed the drug together. The drug is said to be consistent in efficacy against viral variants Gamma Mu, Delta, and the most dangerous of them all.

Merck anticipates producing 10 million courses in 2021. More will be made in 2022. Under an agreement in effect, it will provide approximately 1.7million courses to the U.S. Government.

Merck stated in a statement that if all emergency approvals were received by December the drug could be available for up to $7 billion in annual sales, $1 billion of which would come from revenue.