Indian generic drug maker Dr Reddy’s Laboratories has announced entering into a non-exclusive licensing agreement with Gilead Sciences, which grants the Indian firm the rights to register, manufacture and sell the American biopharmaceutical firm’s investigational drug Remdesivir, a potential treatment for Covid-19.
The rights to register, manufacture and sell the drug were granted for 127 countries including India and it marks a significant step forward in the race to develop and make available cure for the virus which is rampaging through all of the world.
The Hyderabad headquartered drug maker will obtain technology transfer from Gilead for manufacturing of the drug wherein the Indian firm would need to do the manufacturing scale up.
Further, Dr Reddy’s in a statement on Saturday said it needs to obtain regulatory approval for marketing the drug in respective countries.
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Gilead’s drug Remdesivir, an investigational antiviral therapy, had received Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) by the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) to treat Covid-19.
Gilead on Saturday said it has also entered into licensing agreements with two more Indian drug makers Biocon’s arm Syngene International and Zydus Cadila, and Egypt-based Eva Pharma, for manufacture and sale of the antiviral drug.
This is in addition to five companies with which Gilead Sciences had announced pacts last month, which include Mylan, Cipla, Hetero Drugs, Jubilant Life Sciences, and Pakistan-based Ferozsons Labs.
Last month, there were media reports that Dhaka based Beximco Pharma became the world’s first company to start selling the generic version of Gilead’s antiviral drug Remdesivir.
However, the American drug maker said it didn’t provide a license to Beximco or any other company in Bangladesh to produce Remdesivir.
