A good news for Covid warriors

New Delhi : Adding a note of positivity to the Covid survivors, the pharma companies that are manufacturing Remdesivir in India have brought down the prices of the medicine that are used in treating hospitalized patients suffering from severe infection, in accordance with the government’s intervention in the previous week.

Based on the brand, the price of the drug has fallen from Rs 2,800-5,400 to Rs 899-3,490 every 100 ml. Keeping in mind the current scenario, the seven manufacturing companies have lowered the price voluntarily.

Amidst the increase in the number of positive cases and the shortage and the high price of Remdesivir, the Centre at the first stage stopped exporting the drug in order to meet up to the local demand. In addition to this, in the previous week at a meeting with the manufacturers, the Centre took up the decision to help in the fast-track approvals to the firms in order to increase the production capacities and produce around 78 lakhs vials per month and double the presently installed capacity of 38.80 lakh vials. Negotiations have been made between the government and the manufacturers and they have voluntarily agreed to lower the price to make sure that the medicine is available in adequate quantities and is accessible to the people.

But, few public health advocates have raised certain issues regarding the huge gap in MRP of various brands and requested the government to cap the prices by using provisions for emergency usage. The local medicine manufacturers include Cadila Healthcare, Cipla, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, Hetero Labs, Jubilant Pharma, Mylan, and Syngene International.

Remdac of Cadila is offering the drug at the lowest price – Rs 899 per vial.

Used in the treatment of Ebola, Remdesivir, the anti-viral medicine is an ‘investigation drug’ that has proved to be effective in the treatment of Covid-19.