Molnupiravir was approved by the by FDA for treatment of Omicron patients. The antiviral drug is manufactured by 13 companies in India including Dr Reddy, Sun Pharma, Cipla, Health biotech. Remdesivir was authorized last year for the emergency use to treat COVID-19 patients who were hospitalized.
After almost two years of COVID-19 outbreak, the pharma sector has realized that the pandemic is not going anywhere, anytime soon. It has become more evident from the new variant of Omicron SARS-CoV2 that battling new variants will become a new normal. The growing threat is also opening up new opportunities for the pharma sector globally to explore more possibilities.
According to India's economic survey, 44 percent of Indian Pharma' market saleswere made from COVID-19 related therapies at the peak of the second wave in April-May 2021, and the Indian Pharma recorded a market value of USD 42 billion in 2021.
The current crisis opens the path for new therapeutics to treat a highly infections variant of Omicron. The three vaccine major companies, Covishield (from Serum Institute of India), Covaxin (from Bharat Biotech) and Sputnik V (Dr. Reddy Laboratories), under the national COVID-19 immunization program, have announced that they are working on advanced vaccines that would beat the mutant variants of Omicron.
Novavax and Dynavax are also pushing their vaccines as booster doses in India in collaboration with Indian pharmaceutical companies. Recently, Cadila Healthcare's vaccine ZyCov-D, received approval to inoculate children between the age group (12-18 years) along with Covaxin (15-18 years).
Recently, Molnupiravir was approved by the FDA for the treatment of Omicron patients.The antiviral drug is manufactured by 13 companies in India including Dr Reddy, Sun Pharma, Cipla, Health biotech. Remdesivir was authorized last year for the emergency use to treat critical COVID-19 patients who were hospitalized.
Glenmark recently launched its Nitric Oxide Nasal Spray under the brand name FabiSpray in India; for the treatment of adult patients with COVID-19 who have high risk of progression of the disease. Glenmark earlier received manufacturing and marketing approval from the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) for NONS as part of the accelerated approval process.
With no end in sight to the ongoing pandemic, it is important for these companies to bridge the gap through innovation and tech-integration in the pharma sector. Many experts believe that the new variants could be more dangerous, and a great amount of experimentation would be required to contain their spread.
