Asia - South

The national pharmaceutical panel is scheduled to make its recommendation on Thursday, but the government will wait for a third panel, which has not said when it will reach its conclusion, before deciding whether to grant approval.

The agreements will bolster India's arsenal of drugs to battle its catastrophic second wave of the pandemic, which has led to an acute shortage of coronavirus medicines including remdesivir and tocilizumab.

Friday's death comes as the country is battling a new outbreak that began early last week and is spreading rapidly in many parts of the country, including the capital Hanoi.

Of the five of vaccines developed so far in the Global West, at least three companies — Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca, and Novavax — licensed their technologies to Indian manufacturers as far back as last year.

The therapy is a cocktail of two antibodies Casirivimab and Imdevimab, which are synthetically manufactured copies of antibodies that the body produces after an infection.

India has put vaccine distribution to other countries on hold as the country battles the world’s fastest-growing Covid-19 surge. The delay in distribution is hampering the global vaccination effort.

RPM, or “vertical price fixing,” encompasses both “direct” agreements between suppliers and resellers to fix or restrict downstream resale pricing, as well as “indirect” compulsion to follow pricing guidance.

Indonesia's vaccine programme has slowed due to an export ban from India and other supply issues.

In 2009, China launched its essential medicine plan and started a new round of medical and healthcare reforms. The Zero Mark-up Drug Policy (ZMDP) is an necessary part of the essential drug plan

The call for compulsory licenses on two new tuberculosis (TB) drugs gets louder in India.

India's death toll is now nearing 200,000, and some hospitals are turning away coronavirus patients as they do not have enough oxygen supplies and beds.

Nations including Britain, Germany and the United States have pledged support, while the World Health Organization said it was working to deliver 4,000 oxygen concentrators, calling the situation in India "beyond heartbreaking".

Under fire for his uneven handling of the world's worst COVID-19 surge, Modi has opened vaccinations for all adults from next month but supplies are already running short.

Some countries have limited or halted its use over possible links to blood clotting.

The deal comes a week after Pfizer agreed to supply additional vaccines to Japan by the end of September, which would be enough to inoculate all people over 16.