KARACHI: Searle Company Limited, a Pakistani drug company has said that it would import remdesivir, which has shown effectiveness in treating the coronavirus patients, from Bangladesh.
Searle Company Limited and Bangladesh’s Beximco Pharmaceuticals have signed a marketing and licensing agreement.
The Bangladesh’s drug company has become the world’s first pharmaceutical firm to introduce remdesivir’s generic variant.
Searle Company Limited told the Pakistan Stock Exchange that the anti-viral drug would be imported in ready-to-use from Bangladesh to fulfill the urgent requirements in the country.
Earlier this month, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the United States had allowed an emergency use of remdesivir, an Ebola drug, for the treatment of severely ill patients of coronavirus.
After the FDA authorisation, now the Ebola drug could be used for severely ill patients of Covid-19 only at hospitals.
Experts said that the use of drug had helped shorten the recovery time of serious patients during a recent clinical trial.
They, however, cleared that the drug did not significantly help improve the rate of survival.
The researchers warned that remdesivir, manufactured by Gilead pharmaceuticals, is not a magical bullet for the virus.
