The Department of Drugs Administration has granted permission to three private companies to import antiviral medication remdesivir for treatment of COVID-19.
Yeti Pharma, Synergy Overseas and Veiovis Lifescience have been given permission to import remdesivir after meeting the required standards, according to Director of the department Narayan Prasad Dhakal. "Other countries have also granted permission. We have also, therefore, granted permission to hold clinical trial while also doing research," he stated.
He revealed that the imported remdesivir will be used in coordination with the Nepal Health Research Council (NHRC). "Remdesivir will not be available for sale in the market like other medicines after import. It will be used on the patients who need it under direct supervision of the doctors," Researcher with the NHRC Megh Nath Dhimal said.
He added that the NHRC will conduct research on the drug's efficacy. The NHRC has decided to do the research after successful use of the medication in America, Europe and India.
Remdesivir, a drug that once offered hope against Ebola, has showed to shorten recovery time for people with COVID-19 from an average of 15 days to about 11 days in trials.
Drugmaker Gilead Sciences Inc. began research on remdesivir in 2009, as part of research programs for hepatitis C and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), according to healthline.com. Testing later showed that the drug had broad-spectrum antiviral activity.
This led to initial animal studies against the Ebola virus. The drug, though, failed to live up to expectations, coming up short against two other drugs in a landmark clinical trial published last year.
Even before COVID-19, Gilead had tested remdesivir against other coronaviruses — including those that cause SARS and MERS — in laboratory and animal studies. However, no clinical trials were done because there were too few MERS cases and no SARS cases at the time.
Remdesivir is thought to interfere with the mechanism that certain viruses, including the new coronavirus, use to make copies of themselves.
