Jubilant Lifesciences had some good news to share late yesterday night - its subsidiary, Jubilant Generics has entered into a non-exclusive Licensing Agreement with Gilead Sciences that will grant Jubilant the right to register, manufacture and sell Gilead’s investigational drug, remdesivir, a potential therapy for Covid-19 in 127 countries including India.

Under the licensing agreement, Jubilant will have the right to receive a technology transfer of the Gilead manufacturing process to scale up production to enable expedited access of the medicine to Covid-19 patients upon approvals by regulatory authorities in respective countries.

Remdesivir, an investigational antiviral therapy developed by Gilead, received Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) by USFDA to treat Covid-19. The EUA will facilitate broader use of remdesivir to treat hospitalized patients with severe COVID-19 disease. The EUA is based on available data from two global clinical trials – US National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ placebo-controlled Phase 3 study in patients with moderate to severe symptoms of COVID-19, and Gilead’s global Phase 3 study evaluating remdesivir in patients with severe disease. Multiple additional clinical trials are ongoing to generate more data on the safety and efficacy of remdesivir as a treatment for COVID-19. Remdesivir remains an investigational drug and has not been approved by USFDA.

The stock price has reacted as expected – hitting the roof the moment it opened for trading. Yesterday, it had closed at Rs.409.50 and today it opened at Rs.429.95, hitting the 5% UC immediately.