Zydus slashes Covid-19 drug price to Rs 899 per vial

New Delhi: Drug firm Zydus Cadila on Wednesday said it has significantly reduced the price of its generic version of Remdesivir, which the company sells under the brand name 'Remdac', to Rs 899 for a 100 mg vial. The company had launched Remdac in August 2020 at Rs 2,800 per 100 mg lyophilized injection in the country. Remdesivir is a critical drug in the treatment of Covid-19. This move to further revise the prices will go a long way in helping patients during these critical times, Zydus Cadila said in a statement.

"Through the course of this pandemic, our efforts have been focused on making therapies accessible and affordable to people. Remdac has been one of the critical drugs in the disease management on Covid-19 and we hope that this price cut will enable people from every strata of the society to access this critical drug," Cadila Healthcare MD Sharvil Patel said. In June 2020, Zydus Cadila had entered into a non-exclusive agreement with Gilead Sciences Inc to manufacture and sell Remdesivir, which had been issued an Emergency Use Authorization by the US Food and Drug Administration to treat patients suffering from severe symptoms of Covid-19, the filing said.

The active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) for the drug has been developed and manufactured at the group's API manufacturing facilities in Gujarat, it added. Shares of Cadila Healthcare, the listed entity of Zydus Group, were trading at Rs 431.50 per scrip on BSE, up 0.10 per cent from its previous close.