The generics industry is a crucial partner in the fight against Covid-19 where cross-industry partnerships and alliances are creating a new normal, writes Tony Cordrey, VP Operations, Accord Healthcare EMENA.
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As the world has had to unite in common purpose to fight Covid-19, the pharmaceutical industry has joined together to play a key role in ensuring that vital medicines reach sick patients at their point of need. No longer the Cinderella of the pharma industry, the specialist manufacturing of generic drug suppliers has come into sharp focus on the frontline of a pan-industry effort during the pandemic.
The industry has always thrived on the symbiotic relationship between large pharmaceutical companies, with their undisputed strength in global research and development of innovator molecules and the generics industry, filling the post-patent gap by producing primarily small molecules and, increasingly, more complex biosimilars. However, research is not solely the domain of the larger companies. Increasingly the generics industry has started to initiate research into off-patent molecules that, based on their mode of action, can be repurposed to treat diseases that are different from the original licensed disease. Repurposing off-patent medicines has played an important part in the global search for a treatment for Covid-19 and it is this activity that has brought generics manufacturers into sharp focus as a keystone of our efforts. Accord’s scientists were able to very quickly identify five molecules that could possibly be repurposed; one of these very early discoveries was hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), a promising agent in the potential prophylactic and therapeutic use of combatting Covid-19. However, obtaining sufficient quantities for research purposes has not proved an easy task; supply chains are long and diverse and predictions of future demand are difficult to establish.