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Waiting for the drug

More than 397,000 people across the world have died till date due to Covid-19, yet a cure seems to be nowhere in sight. While around 150 drugs are undergoing rigorous trials and study, Gilead Sciences Inc., an American biopharmaceutical company claimed to come closest to cracking this code.
Remdesivir, an antiviral drug designed by Gilead to treat Ebola proved itself effective on Covid-19 patients. The result of a trial of the drug showed an increased speed of recovery by up to 4 days. The result of this trial was accidentally posted on the World Health Organisation's website a couple of weeks ago and quickly taken down too. The test was marked 'preliminary'. However, fate seemed more lost when further tests of the drug conducted in China failed to show any remarkable improvements in the patient.
As of now, Remdesivir still stands as the most effective drug to cure Covid-19 as it has helped patients with Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (Mers-CoV) and severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) in the past.
A week ago India had approved Remdesivir for emergency use in treating Covid-19 patients. India's health ministry approved it as the first drug to show improvement in Covid-19 patients in its clinical trials. However, despite the rapid rise in deaths and approval to use the drug in hand, the patients in India are still waiting for the drug to be available. As much as five companies are awaiting approval from the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI).
The companies awaiting the green flag have signed agreements with Gilead to manufacture and distribute the drug in around 127 countries, putting light on the fact that all those are counting for its availability. As of today, the manufacturers are ready with raw materials for production of the same. Meanwhile, the DCGI has asked these companies to submit data from animal toxicity studies, stability studies and test licenses as all of these companies have only submitted the data analysis handed out by Gilead themselves.
As this conversation happens, one can only hope that this doesn't turn out a wasteful one where a government authority and a private manufacturer keep putting the ball on each other's turf. The number of cases doesn't seem to slow down by the day and the availability of such a drug in the market is the need of the hour.
 

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