As the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic grips India, the US Drug firm Gilead Sciences said it is taking several steps to expand the availability of antiviral drug Remdesivir in India and will also be donating a minimum of 4.5 lakh vials of Veklury to the Indian government.
Gilead Sciences notifies in a statement that the company is providing its voluntary licensing partners with technical assistance, support for the addition of new local manufacturing facilities and the donation of active pharmaceutical ingredients to rapidly scale up production of Remdesivir. In addition to providing support to its licences to expand their local manufacturing capacity, Gilead will also donate at least 450,000 vials of Veklury (remdesivir) to help address the immediate needs of Indian patients, the company added.
Remdesivir is approved in India for restricted emergency use for the treatment of suspected or laboratory confirmed Covid-19 in adults and children hospitalised with severe disease.
Johanna Mercier, Chief Commercial Officer, Gilead Sciences said the recent gush of Covid-19 cases in India is having a devastating impact on communities and has created unprecedented pressure on health systems. She further added that the company is committed to doing its bit to help tackle the crisis and the biopharmaceutical company’s immediate focus is to help address the needs of patients in India who may benefit from Remdesivir as quickly as it can by working together with the government, health authorities and our voluntary licensees.
Gilead Sciences on Monday said all seven of Gilead’s licensees based in India have significantly accelerated production of Remdesivir by scaling up their batch sizes, adding new manufacturing facilities and/or onboarding local contract manufacturers across the country. The seven licensees based in India include Cipla, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, Hetero Labs, Jubilant Lifesciences, Mylan, Syngene and Zydus Cadila Healthcare.
To safeguard against disruption of generic Remdesivir supply to other low-and middle-income countries included as part of the voluntary licenses, The company’s planned support will include the donation of API to licensees with a view to accelerate production, it added.
In a statement it says that Gilead’s voluntary licensing program for Remdesivir, which was established in May 2020, has already enabled access to the drug for more than 2.3 million people in more than 60 low- and middle-income countries”, The program also provides long-term licenses to nine manufacturers, seven of which are based in India, to enable access to Remdesivir in 127 countries, most of which are low- and low-middle income countries, including India, it added.
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According to the Union Health Ministry data update, with 3,23,144 people testing positive for coronavirus infection in a day, India’s total tally of COVID-19 cases has climbed to 1,76,36,307, while the national recovery rate has further dropped to 82.54 per cent, The number of deaths increased to 1,97,894 with 2,771 daily new fatalities.