South Korea is all set to supply generic drugs for COVID-19 to low- and middle-income countries, according to Financial Express Healthcare.
Two South Korean pharmaceutical companies – Celltrion and Dongbang FTL – have obtained the license for the production of generic drugs that treat mild to moderate COVID-19 illness.
The companies will supply the generic drugs to 95 low- and medium-income countries as per the license contract.
Celltrion has recently signed an agreement with the UN-backed Medicine Patent Pool (MPP) for producing generic Paxlovid, Pfizer’s oral antiviral Covid pill.
The company plans to complete the development of the drug and start commercializing it. It will manufacture generic Paxlovid pills at its Cheongju Pharmaceutical plant.
The deal is part of Pfizer’s decision to expand the accessibility of its drug in developing countries through MPP. Last week, the MPP said that 35 drugmakers around the world would make the cheaper versions of Pfizer’s Paxlovid.
The MPP said, “The 35 companies that will produce versions of Paxlovid or its active ingredient are based in 12 different countries.”
Apart from Celltrion and Dongbang, Hanmi Pharmaceutical FTL will be able to produce and supply generic drugs for COVID. Hanmi secured a license for Merck’s molnupiravir, another oral antiviral COVID pill.
In clinical trials, Paxlovid has been found 90% effective at reducing COVID hospitalizations in high-risk patients. The findings were significantly better than molnupiravir.
As far as the vaccines are concerned, SK Bioscience, a South Korean biotech company, has become the hub of vaccine production in Asia.
Samsung Biologics, another South Korean company, which is producing and supplying Moderna’s COVID vaccines, is manufacturing antibody Covid-19 treatments of Eli Lilly, GSK, and AstraZeneca. Hanmi is also set to produce a plasmid DNA COVID-19 vaccine ‘Zycov-D,’ on consignment with Indian drugmaker Zydus Lifesciences.
