Pfizer Will Allow Generic-Drug Manufacturers To Produce Inexpensive Versions Of Its Covid-19 Pill

Pfizer announced earlier this month that its tablet reduced the risk of hospitalisation and death in persons with mild to moderate coronavirus infections by nearly 90%. 

Representational Image. (File Photo)

New Delhi: Pfizer Inc. has signed an agreement with a United Nations-backed initiative to allow other companies to manufacture its experimental COVID-19 tablet, potentially bringing the therapy to more than half of the world's population.

Pfizer in a statement released on Tuesday said that it will provide a license for the antiviral tablet to the Geneva-based Medicines Patent Pool, allowing generic medicine companies to create the pill for use in 95 countries, accounting for nearly 53% of the global population.

However, some significant nations that have had disastrous coronavirus outbreaks are excluded from the agreement.

Nonetheless, health experts believe that the agreement was reached even before Pfizer's pill was approved anywhere, which might assist to speed up the end of the pandemic.

“It’s quite significant that we will be able to provide access to a drug that appears to be effective and has just been developed, to more than 4 billion people,” Esteban Burrone, head of policy at the Medicines Patent Pool was quoted by Associated Press in its report.

He predicted that other drugmakers would be able to begin making the tablet in a matter of months, but admitted that the deal will not be popular with everyone.

“We try to strike a very delicate balance between the interests of the (company), the sustainability required by generic producers, and most importantly, the public health needs in lower and middle-income countries,” Burrone further said.

According to the provisions of the deal, Pfizer will not collect royalties on sales in low-income countries and will waive royalties on sales in all countries covered by the agreement while COVID-19 remains a public health emergency.

Pfizer announced earlier this month that its tablet reduced the risk of hospitalisation and death in persons with mild to moderate coronavirus infections by nearly 90%. 

Pfizer said it will approach the US Food and Drug Administration and other authorities as soon as possible to have the pill approved.

(With inputs from AP)