Possible Covid19 Drug Remdesivir: Out of Stock!

With the number of coronavirus cases inching higher each day and the race to develop an effective vaccine gathering more steam, the United States Government has secured almost the entire stock of Remdesivir — a drug that has been showing positive results on patients infected with the coronavirus.

Remdesivir, manufactured by US-based Gilead Sciences Inc has signed a deal with the United States Health and Human Services for 5 lakh treatment courses of the drug.

The move is in line with US President Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ approach. In India, CIPLA and Hetro Labs are the two companies that have an emergency marketing approval for this from the Drug Controller of India.

The department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in the US said that it has secured 500,000 treatment courses of the drug for American hospitals.

“This denotes 100 per cent of Gilead’s protruded production for July (94,200 treatment courses), 90 per cent of production in August (174,900 treatment courses), and 90 per cent of production in September (232,800 treatment courses), in addition to an allocation for clinical tests,” HHS said in a release.

According to the release, the treatment for coronavirus using Remdesivir for a person is 6.25 vials. Hospitals will pay approximately $3,200 per treatment course. Gilead has already donated approximately 1,20,000 treatment courses of Remdesivir to the United States.

In India, the Drug Regulator has given permission to Hetero Labs and Cipla to manufacture and market antiviral drug Remdesivir for “restricted emergency use” on hospitalised patients of the coronavirus disease.

Additionally Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, another domestic pharma major has been granted permission to manufacture and market Favipiravir, for restricted emergency use only.

Remdesivir, a drug manufactured to treat patients of Ebola virus has been showing positive signs when used on patients during clinical trials.

It was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in May this year for the treatment of coronavirus patients. The drug, administered in the form of injection, has been approved with a dosage of 200 mg on day one followed by 100 mg daily for the following five days.