Pfizer has a pill as well, but theirs is designed to work WITH the vax, so take a shot and pop pills until the next booster, just so you can live. Quite a vaccine that requires a pill to actually work. Merck has no vax to sell so their pill will be stand-alone. The science follows the money.
Oddly, these pills are being touted as “potent class 3 protease inhibitors”
Ivermectin, although not developed as a protease inhibitor, was identified as using that exact mechanism to stop viral replication.