Nagpur: Taking serious note of shortage and blackmarketing of Remdesivir injections, the Union Minister Nitin Gadkari took up the issue with the Drug Controller of India. Gadkari also met Union Minister Mansukh Mandviya and Prime Minister Narendra Modi and apprised them of severe shortage of Remdesivir injection in the region.
The untiring efforts of Gadkari bore fruit as the government has permitted seven more pharma companies to produce the vital injection used for treating Covid-19 patients. While raising the issue with the Drug Controller of India Somany, Gadkari discussed the possibility of relaxing the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Act so that all major pharma manufacturing units can produce this injection and make it available at a much cheaper cost. At present, the patent of manufacturing Remdesivir injection is with four companies that are producing the medicines on war-footing. But the supply from these four companies is proving inadequate in view of a surge in corona cases across the country.
Raising the issue with Union Minister Mandviya, he urged him to relax Section 84 of IPR Act by which such permission can be granted to other pharmaceutical companies to ensure enough supply of this life saving drug at cheaper cost without losing any further time. On the lines of the High Court order, Gadkari also directed officers to discard red-tape and provide life saving drugs to every needy patient by easing out the cumbersome procedures.
Subsequently, the Central Government has fast-tracked approvals for seven companies to manufacture the critical Covid-19 drug Remdesivir in India, allowing them to more than double their combined capacity to around 7.8 million vials per month. Mandaviya gave fast-track approval to six manufacturers to set up seven additional sites that could scale up the production capacity of remdesivir by 1 million vials per month.
