Thailand now has the right to produce antiviral drug favipiravir to treat COVID-19 patients and the Government Pharmaceutical Organization is ordering ingredients for the production.
Government House wrote on its Facebook page that Thailand could start the production because the Department of Intellectual Property rejected a patent application for the drug after finding out that the company that developed it did not present any further innovation of the drug. As a result, no one had a patent on it.
Government House wrote that Thailand had enough technology and capacity to produce favipiravir to treat its COVID-19 patients but had to import the drug because of the past issue of the production right.
The country uses 50,000 favipiravir tablets a day. On May 10, 3 million tablets will arrive and raise its stock of the drug from 2 million to 5 million tablets which will be enough for three months’ consumption. (TNA)
