India and Pakistan have increased production of the coronavirus drug remidesivir under a licensing agreement with Gilead Science, but its distribution to other developing countries has been slow.
Vamshi Krishna Bandi, managing director of pharma company Hetero, said there was no shortage of rimadasivir in India – the country has the second largest coronavirus infection in the world – and the business had delivered 800,000 doses of the drug locally. Since the start of production in June.
But while doctors in India prescribe experimental Covid-19 treatments, most of the 127 countries in the Gilead licensing deal have not started buying it.
Mr Bundy said a few countries had indeed “put in place a system for procurement”, adding that some African countries in particular were placing orders. Hetero has exported to 25 countries, while another Indian manufacturer, Cipla, said it only shipped to South Africa.
Developed as a possible treatment for hemorrhagic fever Ebola, Gilead’s Rimdesivir prevents the growth of the virus in the body and shortens the recovery time from Covid-19. The placebo group’s 15-day randomized controlled trial of more than a thousand patients showed that it cut the recovery time to 11 days, followed by a U.S. visit in May. In it was allowed emergency access.
More recent tests in July showed that the drug could also reduce the risk of death, suggesting that antiviral treatment could do more than just speed recovery.
Following a model initiated during the AIDS / HIV epidemic, Mathieu, Gilead has signed licensing agreements with nine generic pharmaceutical companies in India, Pakistan and Egypt to supply remedicavir to 127 developing countries.
Licensing is royalty-free for those countries unless the World Health Organization declares a public health emergency or a remedicivir, or a Covid-19 treatment other than a vaccine. U.S. Priced at Rs 3,390 for a single dose, the drug costs around Rs 2,800 ($ 38) in India.
“Currently, our licensees have made remedicavir available to needy patients in more than 0 countries, and we hope that this number will continue to grow in the coming months,” said Gilead. “We are pleased with the rapid progress made through these efforts.”
Usman Waheed, chief executive of Ferozans Laboratories Ltd., one of the largest pharma companies in Pakistan, said he had a stock of more than 100,000 remedizavir doses after waiting weeks for approval by healthcare authorities in Islamabad.
Firozans is now shipping the drug to the Caribbean, Kenya and the Philippines, though Pakistan is still sitting on large stocks after the Kovid-19 case dropped.
“We have 100,000 doses today, we have nowhere near that level of demand in Pakistan,” Mr Waheed said. “The [coronavirus] The burden on the healthcare system has almost come down from a cliff. ”
But the U.S. In, where the number of coronavirus deaths is close to 200,000 and the general production and distribution of rimadesivir is not licensed, some hospitals have struggled to catch the drug. Gilead has said that it is not a U.S. citizen. Will increase production to “treat all eligible hospitalized patients” and meet the “global real-time requirement” by October.
Leena Manghani, manager of Medicines Sans Frontieres Access Access Campaign in India, has called on Gilad to expand the licensing deal to enable generic drug manufacturers to produce and distribute cheap remedesivir worldwide. “They should also allow licensed generic manufacturers to supply to upper middle and high income countries,” he said.
Gilead said: “We do not expect any changes in the territory covered by our general license.
