![Billy Fischer, MD (Photo by Max Englund/UNC Health Care)](https://news.unchealthcare.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/1159/2020/06/a-lifelong-mission-image2.jpeg)
October 1, 2021
Carolina Research Leads to Effective Experimental Pill to Treat COVID-19
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill research set the stage to seek emergency authorization of the first oral antiviral drug to treat COVID-19, a pill developed by the pharmaceutical companies Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics. William Fischer, MD, at the UNC School of Medicine led pivotal clinical trials on the drug molnupiravir.