[Reporter’s View]Support domestic COVID-19 drugs

to ensure the much-needed self-sufficiency of COVID-19 drugs

The recurrence of COVID-19 has sparked interest in COVID-19 drugs.

 

After the pandemic turned into an endemic, the government set a budget of KRW 179.8 billion for COVID-19 drugs this year, which was a 53.2% cut from last year, and the number of COVID-19 drugs introduced in Q1 and Q2 of this year was 179,000, half of the 341,000 that the government procured during the same period last year.

 

The government claimed that the budget cut was due to preparations for the reimbursement of COVID-19 treatments, but the government ultimately set aside KRW 326.8 billion in emergency reserves to purchase an additional 262,000 doses of treatment after failing to predict the resurgence of COVID-19.

 

The amount of the reserve is nearly equivalent to the KRW 384.3 billion budget the government had set for the purchase of COVID-19 drugs last year.

 

Due to the lack of a Korean treatment option, Korea has to rely on global pharmaceutical companies for all supplies of treatments in the event of a COVID-19 outbreak.

 

This is because there are currently only 3 COVID-19 drugs available in Korea - Pfizer's Paxlovid Tab, MSD's Lagevrio Cap, and Gilead's Beklury Inj.

 

If there were locally developed COVID-19 treatments, not just global pharmaceutical companies' products, the government could have addressed the outbreak faster.

 

To stabilize the supply and demand of cold medicines, the government asks domestic pharmaceutical companies to increase production through a public-private consultative body to balance the supply and demand when medical organizations report unstable supply.

 

The recent shortage of COVID-19 drugs is likely to have been affected by Korea’s reliance on imported products.

 

Curing the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a movement toward self-sufficiency of drugs.

 

Celltrion developed Regkirona Inj and received marketing authorization in September 2021.

 

However, in 2022, the company suspended new supplies due to its low effectiveness against omicron mutations.

 

Following this, Ildong Pharmaceutical's Xocova, which was developed in collaboration with Japan's Shionogi Pharmaceutical, and Hyundai Bioscience's Xafty tried to cross Korea’s threshold through the emergency use authorization pathway but failed.

 

The MFDS pointed to the small number of clinical trial subjects and requested Phase III clinical data for the domestic approval of each drug.

 

COVID-19 treatments need to accumulate clinical data on COVID-19 patients, and this is why domestic pharmaceutical companies have been struggling to recruit patients in the endemic.

 

The need for homegrown drugs and vaccines has been emphasized during the outbreak.

 

The government has also provided various support such as emergency use authorization and expedited review.

 

However, since COVID-19 was declared endemic, many people lost interest in domestic COVID-19 treatments.

 

But the resurgence of COVID-19 this time has made everyone realize that a second or third wave could come at any time.

 

The endemic is not the end of COVID-19.

 

We need to expand our support for domestic drugs to ensure self-sufficiency of COVID-19 treatments in Korea.