Business Desk :
Square Pharmaceuticals Limited is set to start the sale of its generic version of the experimental oral medicine molnupiravir to treat COVID-19 from today.
The company said it will market the drug as ‘Molvir’ at the price of Tk 50 per capsule. It received the authorisation to produce and sell the drug, developed by US firm Merck & Co, from the Directorate General of Drug Administration.
Beximco Pharmaceuticals, Eskayef and Renata have also received the greenlight. Incepta, General Pharma, Beacon Pharma and other firms are also awaiting authorisation. The drug is already available at some local pharmacies. Beximco is supplying the drug as ‘Emorivir’ and Eskayef as ‘Monuvir’.
A patient has to take eight capsules each day for five days, said Mohammad Atiquzzaman, the managing director of Square Pharma. The medicine is 87 percent effective for patients who haven’t received a coronavirus vaccine, according to Eric S Chowdhury, an official of Square Pharma. “We are hoping that the efficacy rate will be more than 90 percent for those who have taken two doses of the vaccine,” he said. “Our main goal is to reduce pressure from the hospitals with this medicine. If we can do that, the fatality rate from the virus will also fall.”
Bangladeshi pharmaceutical companies were able to swiftly bring in the medicine due to having rights to “copyright exemption” on some drugs as a “developing country”, said DGDA chief Mahbubur Rahman. On Oct 27, Merck granted a royalty-free licence for its promising COVID-19 pill to the United Nations-backed nonprofit Medicines Patent Pool, an organisation that works to make medical treatment and technologies globally accessible.
The deal has allowed companies in 105 countries, mostly in Africa and Asia, to sublicence the formulation for the antiviral pill.
