Lupin aims to bring COVID-19 drugs, jabs; approaches Gilead for Remdesivir

Lupin aims to be actively involved in prevention and treatment of COVID-19, changing its strategy of being relatively less active during the first wave of the pandemic last year.

Viswanath Pilla

May 13, 2021 / 14:47 IST

Lupin | Company received approval from USFDA for Sulfamethoxazole and Trimethoprim Oral Suspension, which is used to treat bacterial infections.

Lupin has approached Gilead Sciences Inc for a voluntary license, or an authorisation given by a patent holder to a generics producer, to manufacture and distribute antiviral drug Remdesivir in India and other countries, the Indian company said on May 13.

"We do have an application pending, we don't have a license (from Gilead)," Nilesh Gupta, Managing Director of Lupin, said at a post-result media call.

"At Lupin, we believe in patent rights, we believe in volutnary licensing. We would like to work very much with Gilead to get approval for the product and make that available," Gupta said.

Lupin, which was not as active as some of its peers during the first wave of COVID-19 with drugs and vaccines, said that strategy has changed.

"We didn't do enough in the first wave, we supplied whatever products we had ... but now we would very much like to be in the front of every product that comes... it would be our intention to be in the first wave of all these products as they come to the market," Gupta said.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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