Biocon Chairperson Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw proposed an emergency use drug for Covid-19 treatment. The drug named Itolizumab was approved for emergency use after it was tested on 30 patients. This is great news as India has risen to the third position in worldwide COVID cases. The hospitals in India so far were adapting existing drugs to treat mild to extreme COVID cases, while they wait for new drugs to counteract the pandemic was on.
Most of the hospitals designated for COVID care have been using drugs that are non-proven treatments; most of these drugs have been used to manage the symptoms or for emergency care. One of the most popular ones is the drug Hydroxychloroquine which is used for treating mild cases and acts as a prophylactic. Remdesivir is another drug which has been employed to treat the Ebola virus earlier. This drug is being used under medical supervision in form injection in designated hospitals. Biocon has proposed that a 25mg/5mL injection of Itolizumab should be used to treat acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) on account of COVID-19. With Rs 7,950 per vial and a typical patient requiring 4 vials, the drug is quite cost-effective for COVID treatment.
Biocon’s approval of Itolizumab has paved the way for other companies to research and reuse existing drugs for COVID treatment. This would be good news for the country.

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