Sun launches cheapest brand of favipiravir at ~35 per tablet

The country’s largest drugmaker Sun Pharmaceutical Industries on Tuesday launched the cheapest brand of favipiravir in the market — Fluguard. It is priced at ~35 a tablet, and earlier, the cheapest brand was Jenburkt Pharma’s Favivent (~39 per tablet).

Favipiravir is used for the treatment of mild to moderate cases of coronavirus (Covid-19) in India. It is the only oral anti-viral treatment approved in India for mild to moderate Covid.

Kirti Ganorkar, chief executive officer (CEO) of India business, Sun Pharma, said, “With over 50,000 Covid-19 cases being reported daily in India, there is an urgent need to provide more treatment options to health care professionals. We are launching Fluguard at an economical price to make the drug accessible to more and more patients, thereby reducing their financial burden.” Fluguard will be available in market from this week.

Recently, Hyderabad’s Hetero launched the drug under the Favivir brand and priced it at ~59 per tablet.

Glenmark’s Fabiflu has been priced at ~79 per tablet and the yet-to-be- launched Cipla's Ciplenza will be around ~68 per tablet.

More than half a dozen favipiravir brands are in the market now and the innovator brand Avigan will be launched by Dr Reddy’s Laboratories (DRL) in August. DRL has remained tight-lipped about the pricing.

The pricing pressure in this category is already visible as Glenmark revised its original price (~103 per tablet) to ~79 per tablet within a month of launch.