US drug giant Eli Lilly and Co said on Monday it had signed licensing agreements with three Indian pharmaceutical companies to increase the availability of its arthritis drug Baricitinib in the country for treating COVID-19 patients.
The agreements will bolster India's availability of medicines to fight the devastating second wave of the pandemic, which has led to medicines such as remdesivir and tocilizumab in short supply.
The three Indian pharma majors Cipla Ltd, Lupin Ltd and Sun Pharma
will collaborate with U.S.-based Lilly to help make and sell baricitinib in India.
Baricitinib has already been given restricted emergency use approval by India's drug regulator for use in combination with remdesivir for the treatment of hospitalised COVID-19 adult patients requiring supplemental oxygen, Eli Lilly said in a statement.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration initially gave Eli Lilly an emergency use approval in November for baricitinib in combination with remdesivir to treat COVID-19 patients.
"More licenses to additional Indian generic manufacturers are expected to be announced soon," said Luca Visini, managing director at Lilly India.
Last week, Eli Lilly said it would donate 400,000 tablets of baricitinib, to be used with remdesivir, to the Indian government.
Cipla, Lupin and Sun Pharma are already marketing antiviral drug favipiravir, used to treat patients with moderate to mild COVID-19. The new drug will increase the portfolio that they will be offering in the coming days.
