the number of coronavirus cases has crossed the 12 million mark worldwide and has already claimed close to 5 lacs 50 thousand lives meanwhile medical experts and researchers are making continuous efforts to find a cure for the highly infectious contagion as of now more than 150 different drugs are being researched for their efficacy and safety against the disease and the majority of these are existing drugs some of the drugs in the trial include remesdivir the drug which was used to fight ebola favilavir the highly controversial antimalaria drug hcq hydrochloroquine lopinavir ritonavir and leprosy drug sepsivacon the other hand gilead sciences inc is all set to launch early testing of the inhalable form of antiviral treatment drug remesdivir the pharmaceutical giant is aiming to create a form of antiviral drug which can be inhaled by the patients who do not require hospitalization just yet hence this may help in targeting the disease early on and contain the infection before it starts to progress in the bodyfor the trial gilead is said to enrol 60 healthy individuals between the age of 18 to 45 to test the efficacy and safety of inhaled formulation of the drug as of now the drug is given intravenously to covid19 patients in hospital settings the inhalable form on the other hand can be used through a nebuliser making it easy to access without hospitalization as wellit is important to note that remesdivir has been touted as one of the leading and most effective drug in the battle against coronavirus studies have shown that the antiviral drug may help in trimming down the recovery period from 15 days to 11 days this is precisely the reason the medicine is being currently hailed as one of the lifesaving drugs and is facing an acute shortage in indiato combat the same three manufacturers in india mylan hetero and ciplaare given the permission to manufacture the generic version of the drug out of the three cipla has recently launched cipremi the generic version of antiviral drug remesdivir and it is said to be amongst the lowest priced drugs globally while heteros covifor costs rs 5400 per 100 mg vial and mylans desrem is sold at rs 4800 per 100 mg vial