Cadila Healthcare (Zydus Cadila) on March 24 further cut the price of antiviral drug Remdesivir to Rs 899 for a 100 mg lyophilized injection.
With the latest price, the full treatment of Zydus Cadila Remdesivir with five injections would cost about Rs 4,500.
Remdesivir was launched in India in May last year by Cipla and Hetero, with each injection priced between Rs 4,000 and Rs 5,500, taking the treatment cost to Rs 20,000- 25,000. In the black market, the treatment used to go as high as Rs 50,000.
Zydus launched Remdesivir under brand name Remdac in August 2020 at Rs 2,800. Being the cheapest Remdesivir version helped the company take a dominant market share. Zydus has a licence from US drugmaker Gilead to manufacture and distribute Remdesivir in 127 countries, including India. Many of those countries are facing the burden of rising COVID-19 cases.
Zydus has developed the API internally at its manufacturing facilities in Gujarat, helping it to price aggresively compared to other Remdesivir manufacturers.
At the peak the domestic demand for Remdesivir was at 500,000 vials. Remdesivir which is used to treat hospitalised COVID-19 patients needs to be taken in five doses.
“Through the course of this pandemic, our efforts have been focused on making therapies accessible and affordable to people," said Sharvil Patel, Managing Director of Cadila Healthcare.
"Remdesivir has been one of the critical drugs in the disease management on COVID and we hope that this price cut will enable people from every strata of the society to access this critical drug,” Patel said.
Remdesivir has been issued an Emergency Use Authorisation by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat patients suffering from severe symptoms of COVID-19.
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