Glenmark Pharma Shares Jump 40% On Launch Of New COVID-19 Drug

Shares of Glenmark Pharmaceuticals rose as much as 40 percent, its biggest-ever intraday gain, to its 52-week high of Rs 573.05 on Monday on launching its antiviral drug Favipiravir for the treatment of COVID-19 patients with mild to moderate symptoms.

The Mumbai-based pharma company, after receiving approval from the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI), launched Favipiravir under the brand name FabiFlu. Sold at Rs 103 per tablet, it is the first oral favipiravir-approved medication in India that received permission to conduct phase-3 for the treatment of COVID-19, the company said in a statement.

It is a prescription-based drug and will be available as a 200 mg tablet at an MRP of Rs 3,500 for a strip of 34 tablets. The drug will be made available both through hospitals and the retail channel, Glenmark said.

Glenmark is producing the active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) for the drug at its Ankleshwar plant, while the formulation is being manufactured at its Baddi plant.

Favipiravir can be used for coronavirus patients with co-morbid conditions such as diabetes and heart disease with mild to moderate COVID-19 symptoms. It offers a rapid reduction in viral load within 4 days and provides faster symptomatic and radiological improvement. Favipiravir has shown clinical improvement of up to 88 percent in mild to moderate COVID-19 cases, Glenmark said.

Favipiravir is a generic version of Avigan of Japanese company Fujifilm Toyama Chemical, also a subsidiary of Fujifilm Corporation.

If we consider a minimum of two strips per patient, Glenmark will be able to provide FabiFlu for about 82,500 patients in the first month of launch itself.