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Biden officials will announce the promising new deal sometime this week, it was reported on Tuesday
The Biden administration is readying to buy 10 million courses of Pfizer's COVID-19 pill to try and finally get ahead of the ongoing pandemic in the United States, a report revealed on Tuesday.
Those doses would be distributed within the country rather than allocated to other countries. The White House is expected to make the announcement this week.
That pill and another one by Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics have been hailed as potential 'game-changers' in a pandemic that's lasted more than a year and a half by curbing hospitalizations and deaths linked to the coronavirus.
The White House was originally in talks to buy 5 million, but President Joe Biden doubled the order after positive clinical data was released, a federal official told the Washington Post.
DailyMail.com has reached out to the White House for comment.
Each course of the drug, which consists of up to 30 pills, will reportedly cost the government close to $500 per treatment - about a $5 billion purchase.
The cost is less than that of the Merck pill, which the White House bought more than 3 million courses of for about $700 each, pending approval by the Food and Drug Administration. The existing contract leaves Biden room to buy up to 2 million more treatments.
In more good news for Pfizer on Tuesday, the pharma giant submitted its pill to the FDA for emergency authorization.
If it's authorized it'll be the first oral anti-viral medication
