Hyderabad: City labs to fill demand-supply gap of Remdesivir
Hyderabad: Why is the state facing shortage of Remdisiver injections? Why there has been sudden gap in demand and supply?
According to the Drug Control Administration, the situation would improve soon as the the Telangana State Medical Services Infrastructure Development Corporation (TSMSIDC) has placed orders for 4 lakh units of Remdesivir injections.
According to sources, there are two companies, Reddy's lab and Hetero are producing the injections here. While one company produces about 34,000 units and another 37,000 units of injunctions per day.
Of the two companies, only one company is supplying its entire production to the State government while the other one is releasing about 6,000 units in the open market.
Following intervention of the Drug Control Administration, both these companies have promised to increase their production and about 70,000 units would be made available in next one week's time.
Explaining the reason for shortage, the official said that the supplies were normal but due to sudden spike in cases, a demand and supply gap has arisen. He said manufacturing of Remdesevir takes time. He said for example if one batch of the injection is manufactured on April 1, it cannot be released immediately. The manufacturer has to wait for 14 days and keep it under observation for microbial counts. Once it passes the safety test only it can be released. Hence there is demand supply gap, he added.
He said the situation was being closely monitored by the Telangana State Drug Control Administration led by its Director, Dr Preeti Meena and senior officials. They were in constant talks with the manufacturers. The officials said even in case of oxygen shortage, necessary measures to augment the supplies were being taken.
There are about ten medical oxygen manufacturers in the state. The DCA was also assessing the time frame need to ramp up the additional production of medical oxygen keeping in view the installed capacity of each manufacturing unit.