Fabiflu: Is the medicine a saviour from COVID-19 for everyone? SOLUTIONS
- Aug 8, 2020
- 2 min read
Reference
Five drugs approved by The Central Drugs Control Organisation (CDSCO) for the treatment of coronavirus – Remdesivir and Favipiravir (Antivirals) and three for reducing the symptoms: Dexamethasone, Tocilizumab and Itolizumab is a major step to control the spread till the time vaccine is found. But the major concern that comes with the approval of these drugs is their market price.
As discussed in the previous article about the problem of the affordability of Favipiravir (the first oral medication approved for COVID-19), the condition remains the same with these four drugs as well. Remdesivir costs around 5,000 per vial with full treatment to be close at 50,000. Similarly, the full treatment of the other three drugs lies between 32,000 to 50,000.
To understand the problem well, read my previous article here:
Link:
Why are the prices so high?
The cost of the drug is surely high and even possible to say will remain that
way. Intensive patient care and high failure rate are the reasons contributing for
the extremely high prices for the drugs.
Nearly 60%, yes more than half of the annual increase in drug development cost is mainly due to patient care. Large amount of money is spent on taking care of patients under clinical trials. New developments like remote monitoring and multi drug trials may increase the price rather than reducing it.
The high failure rate, which accounts for a third of the cost increases, betokens the experimental nature of drug development. Since after spending tens of millions of dollars of clinical trials it is difficult to say by the researcher about the success of the drug, testing a lot of candidates seems the only way. After this much spending, the losses keep increasing due to failures and very rarely a success is achieved.
The final cost of a drug includes a low production and manufacturing cost but a very high research and development (R&D) cost.
What can be done?
(R&D- Research and Development)
Due to uncertain and expensive clinical trials, the cost of the drug is extremely high. Large spending on R&D takes the price to the sky. Measures can be adopted to reduce the spending done on R&D. The introduction of a 200% tax reduction on R&D in the Union budget 2010 may have strengthened the base for cost-effective R&D but the slashing down of per cent to 150 in 2017 and even to 100 in 2020 has made R&D even expensive. It is recommended for the government to increase the exemption back to 200%..
Even, the country can cover the medical expenses of the patients in clinical trials i.e. through Ayushman Bharat in India ,would definitely lower the cost of R&D hence decreasing the development cost and decline the final price of the drug.
There is a serious requirement to update that for how long new drugs can enjoy monopoly protection. Last year, the central government notice about keeping no price caps on patented drugs and orphan drugs for five years is the policy clearly to be reviewed. In this situation where the daily cases count is the highest of the year, clearly, there is a vital need for placing price caps on the antiviral medications for coronavirus to increase the affordability of the drug.
Divyanshu Trivedi
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