Eisai Pharmatechnology & Manufacturing has begun the free supply of Diethylcarbamazine Citrate (DEC) 100 mg tablets produced at its Visakhapatnam plant in India to the World Health Organization (WHO). This is in line with Eisai’s commitment to help WHO in its global effort to eliminate lymphatic filariasis in targeted developing and emerging countries.
The Pacific island nations of Papua New Guinea, Kiribati, Tuvalu and Fiji have been confirmed as the first countries to receive the initial shipment. An estimated 6.25 million people living in at-risk communities will benefit from mass drug administration (MDA) programmes.
Eisai is an active partner and signatory to the London Declaration, a global public-private partnership that aims to eliminate ten neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), including lymphatic filariasis, by 2020. As part of its commitment to this global initiative, Eisai has agreed to supply 2.2 billion DEC tablets to WHO for use in national MDA programmes, free of cost.
Lymphatic filariasis, commonly known as elephantiasis, is a parasitic disease that is transmitted to humans by the bite of a mosquito. Once transmitted, it can cause lymphatic dysfunction and lead to serious manifestations such as lymphoedema, causing painful and disfiguring manifestations of the disease. Currently, an estimated 120 million people are already affected and more than 1.4 billion people are at risk of this disease, globally. High-quality DEC (one of the drugs used to treat lymphatic filariasis) is in short supply worldwide and is not easily accessible to at-risk populations in lymphatic filariasis-endemic countries. This poses a major obstacle for eliminating the disease.
Having started the production of DEC at its Visakhapatnam Plant in India in August 2013, Eisai has now begun to provide a steady supply of DEC tablets over a seven-year period from 2013 to 2020 for distribution through WHO’s MDA programmes to some 250 million people living in at-risk communities in 26 targeted countries.
Eisai believes that contributing to the improvement of global health and access to medicines in developing countries is a form of long-term investment that contributes to the economic growth of these countries. The company remains actively committed to addressing overall issues in global health, including NTDs, in order to further increase the benefits provided to patients and their families worldwide.
Eisai Knowledge Centre at Visakhapatnam, a part of Eisai´s global manufacturing and research network, is a global supply hub for increasing access to medicine at affordable prices. The integrated manufacturing facility at Visakhapatnam, supplies high quality Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients and Oral Solid Dosage products globally, including Japan. The facility has approvals from US FDA, MHRA, WHO Geneva, PMDA Japan, Korean FDA etc. The research centre has highly qualified and skilled research scientists who work on the most advanced research and analytical equipment, contributing to the development of the new chemical entities for meeting the unmet medical needs.
The Eisai site in Visakhapatnam was awarded by International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE) as Facility of the Year award-2012 in the best project execution category. Eisai Visakhapatnam is the only facility in India to have won this prestigious international award from ISPE.
EP News Bureau–Mumbai