Russia’s sovereign wealth fund and ChemRar strike deal to supply Covid-19 drug to 17 countries

Avifavir – an aproved drug to treat coronavirus – will be supplied to countries including the UAE and Saudi Arabia

Since June, more than 60,000 packages of Avifavir have been delivered to clinics in 74 Russian regions. AFP

The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and Moscow-based pharmaceutical company ChemRar Group have agreed to supply Avifavir – Russia’s first approved drug for the treatment of Covid-19 – to 17 more countries.

The favipiravir-based drug will be delivered to the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Chile, Argentina, Bulgaria, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, Serbia, Slovakia, South Africa and Uruguay, the sovereign wealth fund said in a statement on Thursday.

Favipiravir is an oral anti-viral drug approved for the treatment of influenza in Japan.

“When we registered the first anti-coronavirus drug in the world there was a lot of scepticism as people were wondering how we could register it when Japan had not registered it yet,” Kirill Dmitriev, chief executive of RDIF, which is financing the country’s vaccine research, said.

“Now five months after our clinical trials we see that Japan has confirmed the clinical efficacy of favipiravir,” he added

The new drug Avifavir has been tested on more than 1,300 patients, RDIF said.

Since June, more than 60,000 packages of Avifavir have been delivered to clinics in 74 Russian regions and many countries have shown interest in the drug. It has already been supplied to Belarus, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

Avifavir and other favipiravir-based drugs produced in Russia, as well as Remdesivir developed in the US, are currently the leading registered drugs against the Covid-19, RDIF said.

In May, Avifavir received a registration certificate from Russia’s Ministry of Health and it became the first favipiravir-based drug in the world to be approved for Covid-19 treatment.

Almost five months after the clinical trials, Japan's Fujifilm confirmed the efficacy of favipiravir against the coronavirus.

Avifavir has also been approved by regulators in Europe, Middle East and Asia, RDIF said.