New Delhi, July 1: Remdesivir, the first approved drug to treat Covid-19 patients, has sparked an unsavoury controversy due to the ‘inordinately’ high price even as the death count soars past half-a-million mark.
The drug, patented by the US pharma giant-Gilead, costs $2350 (Rs. 178,000) per 5-day course when the actual production cost is merely $5, according to Dr. Andrew Hill, senior visiting research fellow at Liverpool University. This is in addition to all other costs including hospitalisation.
More importantly, the drug, which has been under stringent trials for the past five months since the pandemic spiralled beyond control, will remain elusive to the entire world except for the US which has bought up
virtually entire stocks for the next three months.
The company, which originally developed the Remdesivir composition for the treatment of dreaded Ebola pandemic, supplied 140,000 doses for the trials around the world. Although it did not work much against
Ebola, the prognosis in the treatment of Covid-19 proved brighter.
No sooner than the drug was approved by the licencing authorities, the US bought up entire production of Gilead-over 500,000 doses for the month of July and more than 450,000 doses for month of August and
September.
The US manoeuvre, which may inflict a bitter sore in global diplomacy amid the worst ever pandemic, has sent the price and availability of the medicine beyond anybody’s reach, leave alone the developing world.
Dr Hill feels that the mechanism of availability of the drug, which is the first one approved for the treatment of Covid, is not yet in place. If the situation is like this for the treatment-drug, how difficult will be the case
for vaccines, once it is developed.
Dr Hill also stated in a tweet that the ‘ Countries should prioritize dexamethasone, which costs less than $ 20 per person and has proven survival benefit.’ “ Dexamethasone costs only US 25 cents for a 10-day treatment course, when sold in India,” he tweeted.
To expand its access, Gilead said this week it had signed non-exclusive licensing pacts with five generic drugmakers based in India and Pakistan, allowing these countries make and sell remdesivir for 127 countries.
Experts feel that developed countries like the UK may invoke Compulsory Licence overriding the intellectual property rights of the company to secure supplies of the drug from generic companies in India.
Meanwhile, two health advocacy groups have written to the Indian government asking it to rescind patents given to Gilead Sciences so it can be distributed more fairly to coronavirus patients around the world, particularly in poorer nations.
Malaysia-based non-profit group Third World Network and India’s Cancer Patients Aid Association have reportedly written to the Indian Government to revoke the license.
“The licenses divide the global market into two and profitable markets are retained with Gilead and less profitable markets are given to the five generic companies,” quoted K. Gopakumar, senior legal researcher at
Third World Network, as saying.
Another aid group, Doctors Without Borders has also opposed Gilead’s patents on remdesivir, saying such licensing pacts are “not acceptable” amid a global health emergency.
Gilead’s patents on remdesivir in India allow it to exclusively make and sell the drug in the country until 2035 unless it licenses those rights out.
