Novartis Donates 130M Doses of Hydroxychloroquine to Combat COVID-19

Novartis recently announced its commitment to donate up to 130 million doses of generic hydroxychloroquine, a potential COVID-19 treatment. 

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The commitment recently created a 20 million global fund to support impacted communities, drug discovery collaboration efforts, support of clinical trials for existing Novartis medicines, and the Sandoz commitment to maintain stable prices on a basket of essential medicines that could treat COVID-19 patients. 

In mid-March, Novartis announced that it provided $20 million in grants to support public health initiatives designed to help communities manage challenges posed by COVID-19. 

The accelerated global review process will allow for quicker approval and disbursement of individual grants of up to $1 million. 

Hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine are currently in clinical trials to evaluate the safety and efficiency of the drug against the novel coronavirus. Novartis is supporting the trial efforts and will evaluate needs for potential additional trials in the future. 

Novartis intends to donate nearly 130 million 200mg doses of hydroxychloroquine by the end of May, including its current stock of 50 million 200mg doses. The pharmaceutical company may also further scale its capacity to increase supply and voiced its commitment to working with manufacturers to meet the global demand. 

“Novartis Sandoz division currently only holds a registration for hydroxychloroquine in the US, and will pursue appropriate regulatory authorizations from the US FDA and the European Medicines Agency,” the announcement stated. 

Novartis highlighted that it will work with stakeholders, including the World Health Organization (WHO), to determine the best distribution of the medicine to ensure broad access to patients most in need of the medicine globally. 

“We intend to work closely with other manufacturers to scale up production of hydroxychloroquine as necessary to support global supply, and encourage industry, governments, and international institutions to ensure adequate global supply of medications to treat COVID-19 patients,” the company concluded. 

Last week, a study uncovered that repurposed drugs, such as hydroxychloroquine, may be manufactured profitably at very low costs. 

The cost of production ranged between $0.30 and $31 per treatment course. Specifically, the production cost for hydroxychloroquine was $0.08 a day. Of the many repurposed drugs in clinical trials, experts leaned towards hydroxychloroquine as one of the most promising potential coronavirus treatments. 

Hydroxychloroquine is being tested in many clinical trials. Most recently, Henry Ford Health System announced that it will lead the first large-scale study in the US to determine the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine in preventing COVID-19 in frontline workers. 

The randomized, volunteer-based study consisting of over 3,000 individuals will be the first major, definitive study in healthcare workers and first responders of hydroxychloroquine as a preventative medication.

After providing a blood sample, individuals will receive vials of unidentified, specific pills to take for the next eight weeks. The vials will either include a once-a-week dose of hydroxychloroquine or a once-a-day dose of a placebo. 

Over the weeks, experts will check on the participants to see if they are displaying any COVID-19 symptoms such as dry cough, fever, or breathing issues. At the eight-week mark, results will be compared among the groups. Marcus Zervos, MD, will oversee the study with O’Neill.

“There has been a lot of talk about this drug, but only a small, non-blinded study in Europe. We are going to change that in Metro Detroit and produce a scientific answer to the question: Does it work?”

“Metro Detroit has a history of stepping up when things get tough,” said Adnan Munkarah, Henry Ford Health System’s executive vice president and chief clinical officer. “We have a commitment to do that right now – to look at all options in a scientific way – in the face of this worldwide pandemic.”