Glenmark’s claim for treating Covid-19 patients with their antiviral drug “Fabiflu” true?
The Indian pharmaceutical company has released a statement claiming that the said drug can treat coronavirus patients with mild and moderate symptoms.
It seems the wait for a reliable drug to treat COVID-19 ends. Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, the Mumbai based company, has released a statement in which they claim to have made a drug called “Fabiflu”, which is the first oral Favipiravir-approved medicine in India for treating coronavirus. On Friday, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals received the approval for manufacturing and marketing the same from India’s drug regulator under the emergency category.
Fabiflu is a drug that they claim can be used for covid-19 patients having mild and moderate symptoms. It also can be used for patients with co-morbid conditions like heart disease and diabetes with having mild and moderate covid-19 symptoms.
It will be made available in a strip containing 34 tablets with each tablet of 200mg priced at Rs.103. The maximum cost of the drug is priced at Rs.3500. It will be made available to hospitals as well as chemist shops and can be purchased with only a medical prescription, according to sources.
The patient would be given 1800 mg twice on the first day. From the second day, the patient would be given a dosage of 800 mg twice a day up to 14 days as per doctor’s advice. However, it is said that patients only between the age group of 18 to 75 can be given the medication. Also, due to the pandemic, because the approval comes under the emergency category, patients must be required to give an undertaking before the consumption of the medicine.
The Indian pharma company would also be taking care of the end to end processes of the medication which begins with manufacturing API, developing the formulation, to manufacturing, marketing and supplying.
Currently, a clinical trial is being taken on 150 Indian patients and the company has also shown its plan for treatment of covid-19 with a combination trial. The medication claims to bring down the viral load in just four days and would also provide radiological and symptomatic improvement faster.
Glenmark becomes the first company to offer an oral antiviral drug for treating patients with mild and moderate symptoms. Favipiravir has been used by other countries like Japan, China and Russia as well, to treat their patients and the effects have proven to be beneficial.
On Saturday, the company said that the drug would be made available by early next week across the country.
