Jubilant Life Sciences on Tuesday said that it has entered into a non-exclusive licensing agreement with US-based Gilead Sciences Inc to make and sell the latter's anti-viral drug remdesivir in 127 countries, including India. The re-purposed Ebola drug, is being considered as a potential therapy for Covid-19.
Most of these 127 countries are low-income and lower-middle income countries along with some upper-middle and high income countries that face significant obstacles to healthcare access.
Under the terms of the licensing agreement, Jubilant will have the right to receive a technology transfer of the Gilead manufacturing process to scale up production to enable expedited access of the medicine to Covid-19 patients. This would, however, require approvals by regulatory authorities in respective countries.
India can also start using the drug on patients on compassionate grounds. The government was checking with pharma companies on how soon can the drug be manufactured in India for trials. Other drug makers from India are also estimated to be in fray to sign licensing agreements including Dr. Reddy's etc.
Gilead had earlier indicated that it was working to build a global consortium to expand production of remdesivir and to make it availble across countries. The drug, which is an injectable, got emergency approval from the US drug regulator recently. The trials show that patients administered with remdesivir recover faster than others. However, remdesivir remains an investigational drug and has not been approved by USFDA.
Commenting on the partnership, Shyam S Bhartia, Chairman and Hari S Bhartia, Co-Chairman & Managing Director, Jubilant Life Sciences Limited, said, "We are very happy to strengthen our partnership with Gilead to license remdesivir, which, based on initial data, shows promise to be a potential therapy for Covid-19, a pandemic creating unprecedented health and economic crisis globally. We will be monitoring the clinical trials and regulatory approvals very closely and would be ready to launch the drug shortly after the required regulatory approvals. We also plan to produce the drug's Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient ("API") in-house helping its cost effectiveness and consistent availability."
Gilead is known for getting into licensing agreements with other drugmakers for its patented drugs - it did the same for its Hepatitis C drug sofosbuvir earlier.
As such, in a pandemic situations, India can also invoke its Patents Act and grant compulsory licensing provision to allow third party manufacturing of a patented drug.
Jubilant Life Sciences stock ended at Rs 409.5 a piece, up 2.1 per cent on Tuesday on the BSE.