Drug maker Laurus Labs has entered into a strategic partnership agreement with The Global Fund, a three-and-a-half-year pact that will fetch the company volume commitments from the fund for treatment of HIV/AIDS.
Announcing the agreement, the company on Tuesday said it had also received and executed an order for the fund that involved supplies to the high disease-burden countries in the sub Saharan African region.
It was the first order for the company’s fixed dose combination drug Tenofovir/Lamivudine/Dolutegravir 300/300/50mg (TLD).
A preferred first-line regimen for the treatment of people living with HIV, the company’s product had received a tentative approval from the US Food and Drug Administration last month. Laurus Labs shares gained 3.77%, or ₹14.10, to close at ₹388.60 apiece on Tuesday.
Founder and CEO Satyanarayana Chava said “we thank The Global Fund team for placing its trust for a new entrant like us in ARV – FDF (Anti-Retroviral – Finished Dosage Forms) space. For Laurus Labs it is a very significant development which has ventured into the FDFs couple of years ago.”
The Global Fund, founded in 2002, is a partnership involving the governments, civil society, private sector as well as people affected by AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. It raises and invests nearly $4 billion a year to support programmes run by local experts in countries and communities most in need, according to a release from Laurus Labs.
