Bangalore, 01 July 2020: The injectable drug has been given approval by India’s drug regulator, DCGI in the last week of June. Hetero had planned to supply initially 20,000 vials of the drug to most COVID-19 affected places in India in two batches of 10,000 each.
“ Mr. M. Srinivasa Reddy, Managing Director, Hetero Healthcare Limited said: “The launch of COVIFOR in India is a significant milestone for all of us. Hetero Healthcare has always been at the forefront in addressing the public health emergencies.”
Mr Reddy added: “ Through Covifor, we hope to reduce the treatment time of a patient in a hospital, thereby reducing the increasing pressure on the medical infrastructure, overburdened currently due to accelerating covid-19 infection rates. We are working closely with the Government and Medical Community to make ‘Covifor’ quickly accessible to both public and private healthcare settings across the country.”

The 100 mg vial of the injectable medicine is priced at Rs 5,400 ( $71). It has to be administered in hospital under critical care to patients.  The medicine is available at about 6 times this price in the US. Under the special licensing arrangement,  concluded in May 2020, Hetero can export the drugs to 127 countries excluding the US and some other developed nations.
The drug is known to decrease COVID-19 viral load and reduce treatment time of recovered patients from by 4-5 days. Each patient, selected for treatment by doctors based on their conditions, will require up to six doses of Remdesivir for quick recovery.
Media reports indicate that the US government has contracted to buy the entire production of 500,000 vials to be produced by Gilead upto September.

Hetero officials indicated that being a vertically integrated manufacturing organization, the company will manufacture its on APIs ( active pharmaceutical ingredient) for Covifor. 
“ We have  a strong in-house expertise in R&D and manufacturing and has been recognized for bringing first time generics in the market. We have been a long-time partner of Gilead for more than a decade and have partnerships with them for ARVs, Hepatitis etc.” said a Hetero spokesperson. The company is in the process of establishing a strong supply chain for Remdesivir  to meet expected demand from various countries besides the domestic needs in India.

ABLE member company, Hetero Drugs, through its subsidiary Hetero Healthcare Ltd, has started supply initial batch of 20,000 vials of Covifor, the Remdesivir generic version made under license from American company, Gilead Sciences