Pfizer announced on Friday that its antiviral COVID-19 pill cut the risk of hospitalization or death by 89 percent in virus patients.

The preliminary results from the trial were so positive that an independent board of experts recommended discontinuing the tests so that the drug be offered to the public, the drugmaker said.

The company will reveal the data “as soon as possible” to the Food and Drug Administration to seek emergency authorization for the pill.

“Today’s news is a real game-changer in the global efforts to halt the devastation of this pandemic,” Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said in a statement.

He added, “these data suggest that our oral antiviral candidate if approved or authorized by regulatory authorities has the potential to save patients’ lives, reduce the severity of COVID-19 infections, and eliminate up to nine out of ten hospitalizations.”

Pfizer said the data on its pill, which will sell under the brand name Paxlovid, comes from a trial of 1,219 patients who had an underlying medical condition and a laboratory-confirmed infection within five days.

Half of the patients were given the experimental pill within three days of symptom onset and were compared with patients who received a placebo treatment.

Pfizer revealed the data in a press release but has not yet published the underlying data for independent scientists to investigate.

On Thursday, British regulators approved the experimental drug Molnupiravir from US pharmaceutical giant Merck, marking the first time an oral antiviral treatment for Covid-19 in adults has been approved by a public health body.