COVID-19 drug ‘Favivir‘: Drug firm Hetero on Wednesday said it has launched generic oral antiviral drug Favipiravir used for the treatment of patients with mild to moderate COVID-19, in India under the brand name ‘Favivir’ at Rs 59 per tablet. The company has been granted the manufacturing and marketing approval for Favipiravir from the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI), Hetero said in a statement.
The company has been granted the manufacturing and marketing approval for Favipiravir from the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI), Hetero said in a statement. Favivir is the second drug developed by Hetero after Covifor (Remdesivir) used in the treatment of COVID-19, it added.
Favipiravir is used in the treatment of mild-to-moderate COVID-19, and constitutes 122 pills over a period of two weeks, as per the clinical management protocol for the medicine allowed by the regulator. With that dosage, Hetero’s Favivir will cost ₹7,198 for the entire course.
The product is available at all retail and hospital pharmacies across the country starting today and will be sold only on prescription, the company said.
The medication has demonstrated positive clinical outcomes. It improves treatment accessibility to a significant amount of COVID-19 patient population, which have mild to moderate symptoms, Hetero said.
Hetero’s Favivir is the second drug developed by Hetero for the treatment of Covid-19. Last month, the firm had launched Covifor, a licensed generic of Gilead Sciences Inc’s novel drug Remdesivir, for the treatment of severe COVID-19 patients.
The drug will be being manufactured at its formulation facility in Hyderabad, which has been approved by stringent global regulatory authorities such as the US FDA and the EU, among others.
Meanwhile, Sixteen states and UTs, including Delhi, Gujarat Tamil Nadu, and Madhya Pradesh, have a COVID-19 recovery rate higher than the national average of 64.44 percent, the Union Health Ministry said as India’s case count mounted to 15,83,792 and the death toll rose to 34,968 as per the data of Union Health Ministry.
With 32,553 patients discharged in the last 24 hours, the total recoveries have jumped to 10,20,582. The recovery rate today stands at 64.44% amongst COVID-19 patients. The gap between recovered patients and active COVID-19 cases currently stands at 4,92,340. With this figure, the recovered cases are 1.9 times the active cases.
“This takes the national recovery rate amongst COVID-19 patients to 64.44 percent,” the ministry said.
