How Pfizer developed a COVID pill in record time

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/12/03/ [login to see] /how-pfizer-developed-a-covid-pill-in-record-time
Two new drugs are awaiting authorization from the Food and Drug Administration for treating patients with COVID-19, and both may be effective against the omicron variant.

One is made by Merck, the other by Pfizer.

The Merck drug has been in development for years. When the pandemic began, Pfizer's drug didn't exist. The story of its development is another example of how COVID-19 has sped up the drug and vaccine development process.

Pfizer wasn't starting exactly from zero. Mikael Dolsten, Pfizer's chief scientific officer, says that during the SARS outbreak in 2003, company scientists had begun to search for ways to combat that coronavirus.

In particular, they looked for proteins crucial for the virus to replicate once it infected someone.