Hetero facilitates COVID-19 patients to access their remdesivir version

Patients who are in need of the drug will have to fill details such as Name, email, location, contact, number, and quantity, provided on the product enquiry page on Hetero website.

Viswanath Pilla

July 07, 2020 / 13:52 IST

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26 Aug, 2025 12:21

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With requests for access to antiviral drug Remdesivir for treatment of hospitalised COVID-19 patients on oxygen pouring from across India, Hetero has launched a service to reach out to the patients.

Patients who are in need of the drug will have to fill details such as Name, email, location, contact, number, and quantity, provided on the product enquiry page on Hetero's website.

Hetero's team will reach out to patients, and try to facilitate the access to its drug Covifor if it is available. The company is also providing a service that allows patients to know in which hospitals their drug is available.

Hetero is directly supplying the drug to hospitals.

To be sure, sources in Hetero told that they can't assure 100 percent delivery, as drug is launched in select few cities where there is high burden of COVID-19 cases, and limited stocks are running out.

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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