Gilead Sciences, Inc. has announced that in response to the rapid increase in COVID-19 cases in India, the company is providing its voluntary licensing partners with technical assistance, support for the addition of new local manufacturing facilities and the donation of active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) to rapidly scale up production of remdesivir.

Remdesivir is approved in India for restricted emergency use for the treatment of suspected or laboratory confirmed COVID-19 in adults and children hospitalized with severe disease.

In addition to providing support to its licensees to expand their local manufacturing capacity, Gilead will also donate at least 450,000 vials of Veklury^® (remdesivir) to help address the immediate needs of Indian patients.

All seven of Gilead’s licensees based in India have significantly accelerated production of remdesivir by scaling up their batch sizes, adding new manufacturing facilities and/or onboarding local contract manufacturers across the country. While these efforts are expected to increase availability of remdesivir in the coming weeks, Gilead will donate at least 450,000 vials of Veklury to the Government of India to help ease the immediate need for treatment.

To safeguard against disruption of generic remdesivir supply to other low- and middle-income countries included as part of the voluntary licenses, Gilead is also committed to providing support to voluntary licensees based outside of India to increase their production capacity. Gilead’s planned support will include the donation of API to licensees with a view to accelerate production.