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The coronavirus hasn’t seen the last of Pfizer yet. The pharmaceutical giant has tapped Clear Creek Bio, a tiny Cambridge startup, for help in developing new antiviral pills that treat COVID-19, the companies said Tuesday. (Cross, 12/6)

Pfizer and Clear Creek Bio Inc on Tuesday announced a collaboration to identify a potential drug candidate and develop a new class of oral treatment against COVID-19, as Pfizer seeks to expand its anti-infective pipeline. (12/6)

Early reports suggested a link between nirmatrelvir-ritonavir (Paxlovid) and viral rebound, but more recent studies have concluded that rebound may be simply part of the natural course of some COVID-19 cases. (Van Beusekom, 12/6)

KHN: Paxlovid Has Been Free So Far. Next Year, Sticker Shock Awaits.

Nearly 6 million Americans have taken Paxlovid for free, courtesy of the federal government. The Pfizer pill has helped prevent many people infected with covid-19 from being hospitalized or dying, and it may even reduce the risk of developing long covid. But the government plans to stop footing the bill within months, and millions of people who are at the highest risk of severe illness and are least able to afford the drug — the uninsured and seniors — may have to pay the full price. And that means fewer people will get the potentially lifesaving treatments, experts said. (Recht, 12/7)

The U.S. government wants to extend a Dec. 17 deadline for waiving intellectual property protection for Covid-19 diagnostics and treatments, a move that is likely to impede the chances for a World Trade Organization agreement to bolster global access to needed medical products. (Silverman, 12/6)

Women were underrepresented in pandemic trials of antiviral treatments, and sponsors didn't recruit enough Black and Asian participants for human studies on COVID vaccines, a new JAMA analysis of more than 100 trials found. (Dreher, 12/6)

The organization that has led the global effort to bring Covid vaccines to poor and middle-income countries will decide this week whether to shut down that project, ending a historic attempt to achieve global health equity with a tacit acknowledgment that the effort fell far short of its goal. (Nolen, 12/6)

Covid shots designed to protect against the omicron variant trigger a weaker immune response against the rapidly emerging BQ.1.1 subvariant than the previously dominant strain, according to a new lab study. Scientists at the University of Texas Medical Branch, in a study published online Tuesday in Nature Medicine, found that the booster shots performed well against the BA.5 subvariant they were designed to target. (Kimball, 12/6)

A Las Vegas nurse and self-described pagan has sued the hospital that fired her after it rejected her request for a religious exemption to its COVID-19 vaccination requirement. (Hynes, 12/6)

A New Zealand court temporarily took away medical custody of a baby from his parents on Wednesday after they refused blood transfusions for him unless the blood came from donors who were unvaccinated against COVID-19. The court’s ruling in favor of health authorities places the 4-month-old boy into the guardianship of authorities until after he undergoes an urgently needed heart operation and recovers. The parents remain in charge of decisions about their boy that don’t relate to the operation. (Perry, 12/7)