Price of ₹990 per sachet fixed for DRDO’s anti-Covid-19 drug

May 28: The price of DRDO’s anti-Covid-19 drug 2DG has been kept at ₹990 per sachet by Dr Reddy’s Laboratories. The drug comes in powder form in a sachet and is taken orally by dissolving it in water. However, the pharma company would provide the drug to the government hospitals, central and state governments at a discounted price. As many as 10,000 sachets of the drug were made available in the market from Thursday.

The oral drug called ‘2-deoxy-D-glucose’ or 2-DG, was developed by the Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Allied Sciences, a laboratory of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), in collaboration with Dr Reddy’s Laboratories. It was approved for emergency use by the country’s drugs controller earlier this month, as India battled a deadly second wave of the pandemic.

DRDO Chairperson Dr G Satheesh Reddy had informed that the first batch of 2-DG would only be available to AIIMS, Armed Forces Hospitals, DRDO hospitals, and other places in need, while for other hospitals the drug will be available from June.