World / Pfizer agrees to let other companies make its COVID-19 pill, to benefit 95 nations

London: India is one of the 95 countries where Pfizer will allow the sale of its Covid-19 pill, Paxlovid, at a lower cost as per an agreement that the pharmaceutical giant inked on Tuesday with Medicines Patent Pool, a United Nations-backed public health organisation working to increase access to life-saving medicines for low and middle-income countries.

Under the terms of the agreement between Pfizer and MPP, qualified generic medicine manufacturers worldwide would be granted sub-licenses to supply Pfizer’s experimental medicine Paxlovid in combination with another drug called Ritonavir to 95 countries, covering up to approximately 53% of the world’s population.

The MPP’s pact with Pfizer comes a fortnight after the UN agency signed a similar agreement with another pharmaceutical giant Merck for the availability of its investigational drug Molnupiravir in 105 countries including India.

India’s neighbours – Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Afghanistan – are there in both the agreements that MPP closed with Merck and Pfizer.

However, none of the two medicines has received approval from the Drugs Controller General of India. Pfizer medicine has not yet been approved by any regulatory agency in the world whereas Merck's Molnupiravir received UK approval earlier this month and is under consideration of the DCGI.

"Merck has already given the medicine to five Indian companies including Cipla and Hetero through voluntary licensing. The companies are manufacturing it. It will be available in India once the DCGI approval happens,” Ram Vishwakarma, a former director of CSIR’s Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine, Jammu and head of the CSIR’s Covid Strategy Group told DH.

Vishwakarma, a veteran in the pharmaceutical sector, described Pfizer medicine as a “breakthrough molecule” that follows a novel pathway and hits the virus at its entry point.

“Pfizer will not receive royalties on sales in low-income countries and will further waive royalties on sales in all countries covered by the agreement while Covid-19 remains classified as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by the World Health Organisation,” MPP said in a statement.

The MPP’s arrangement with Merck and its partners Ridgeback Biotherapeutics and Emory University is similar.

Both the drugs have been found to significantly reduce the chances of serious Covid-19 disease and hospitalisation in laboratory studies.