AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara

Pfizer is testing a single pill cure for COVID-19. The drug is currently in a Phase One clinical trial with healthy adults and if all goes well, the drug could be available this year.

“We have designed PF-07321332 as a potential oral therapy that could be prescribed at the first sign of infection, without requiring that patients are hospitalized or in critical care,” Mikael Dolsten, who leads the company’s worldwide research, development and medical division, said in a statement.

In early April, the pill was unveiled at the American Chemical Society Spring 2021 meeting. “The drug works by targeting the main protease of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. By inhibiting the protease, the drug prevents the virus from reproducing itself within the body,” reported KRON4.

“For the foreseeable future, we will expect to see continued outbreaks from COVID-19,” Charlotte Allerton, Pfizer’s head of medicine design, told C&EN. “And therefore, as with all viral pandemics, it’s important we have a full toolbox on how to address it.”

“Hopefully we will have a new drug to fight against COVID-19,” Said Ana Martinez, who studies COVID-19 treatments at the Spanish National Research Council CSIC. Martinez hopes the pill will be useful for fighting other coronaviruses and preventing future pandemics since the molecule targets the main protease.