Merck shares rose 1.27% in premarket trading.

Merck shares rose 1.27% in premarket trading.

Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics announce that the U.K. Government will purchase an additional 1.75M patient courses of molnupiravir (MK-4482), an investigational oral antiviral COVID-19 medicine.

In the U.K., Lagevrio is the planned trademark for molnupiravir.

This additional procurement agreement follows a previous deal for 480K courses of treatment by U.K., totalling up to 2.23M courses of molnupiravir.

In early November,U.K.'s regulatory agency authorized Merck's COVID-19 pill.

Also, Merck  has entered into a procurement agreement with the U.S. to supply ~3.1M courses of molnupiravi rand to deliver 1.6M courses to Japan.