Indian medicines saving Chinese lives amid Covid crisis: Report

After nearly three years of the strictest anti-Covid policy, China suddenly lifted the restrictions after numerous protests by Chinese citizens. However, the abrupt relaxation of the ‘zero-Covid’ policy has exposed its 1.4 billion people to the virus, leaving hospitals overwhelmed and morgues overrun by corpses. The situation has become increasingly drastic as the temperatures drop, emptying shelves of cold and pain medication in pharmacies across the country. In its January 13 report, CNN reported that many in China have “turned to the black market where hawkers claim to sell Covid treatments ranging from illegal imports of Indian-made generics of Pfizer’s Paxlovid and Merck’s Molnupiravir to the bonafide product – up to nearly eight times the market price”. The demand for Indian generic drugs has skyrocketed in China amid the massive covid surge. India has been hailed as a ‘world pharmacy’, producing generic drugs for a long time now. Scientifically speaking, generic drugs have the same active ingredients, dosage forms, routes of administration and therapeutic effects as the original. Generic medicines can be safely used to replace the original drug in clinical practice, making them accessible and feasible to everyone. Indian generic drugs have passed the clinical consistency evaluation and are considered to have the same effect as the original drug. Paxlovid, Pfizer’s oral covid-19 treatment is in high demand but seriously low in supply. There are four main Indian generic medicines for Paxlovid – Primovir, Paxista, Molnunat and Molnatris. In March 2022, the official website of the Geneva Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) announced it had signed agreements with 35 pharmaceutical companies, including Astrica and Azizta, a sub-brand of Indian pharmaceutical company Hetero. These companies are legally allowed to produce Nimatevir APIs or formulations, one of the ingredients of Pfizer’s Paxlovid. The demand for Indian versions of Paxlovid is now sur