Medication major Cipla is working together with government agencies to come up with a treatment for COVID-19 while ramping up the production of various life saving essential drugs, according to company's chairman YK Hamied.

Sharing information with business's shareholders at the drug firm's annual report for 2019-20, Hamied said the company is at the forefront in the battle against COVID-19.

"Cipla is cooperating with the Council of Scientific &amp; Industrial Research (CSIR), Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT), Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the Ministry of Public Health to develop medications for the treatment of COVID-19," Hamied said.

Meanwhile, the business is offering drugs, which have revealed potency in treating COVID-19, in partnership with its international partners,'' he explained.

"Through our strategic global partnerships, we offer a wide range of drugs within our portfolio giving aid and improving treatment access. This is particularly true with all the vital life-saving drugs like remdesivir, favipiravir and tocilizumab," Hamied said.

The Mumbai-based medication firm can also be ramping up production of essential drugs required in the struggle against the pandemic,'' he added.

Besides scaling up production of medicines that reveal potency against the virus -- Lopinavir + Ritonavir, Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin, the company is also ramping up production of medication for chronic diseases like asthma, COPD, among others, Hamied said.

He added that the pandemic has also served as a wake up call spotlighting the need for each and every state to be self-reliant.

Cipla's doctrine of self-reliance and self-sufficiency and its pledge to provide universal access to cheap medicines is becoming even more crucial now, Hamied noted.

The foundation and backbone of the pharma business is the accessibility and production of active pharmaceutical ingredients called APIs, '' he said.

"The Government, together with our industry, must set its priorities on availability of essential drugs and provide acceptable incentives to the business to improve development," Hamied said.

Cipla has several decades of expertise in production of bulk APIs and so it looks forward to extending its whole-hearted service to the authorities in this initiative, he added.

Through the years, the drug major has develop alternatives for various critical diseases.

In early 2001, Cipla brought from the drugs for HIV/AIDS and subsequently drugs for pandemic diseases, Hamied said, pointing out that the organization's prowess in developing cost effective medications for life threatening diseases.

In 2001, the business developed the world's first triple anti-retroviral drug combination, Triomune for HIV/AIDS patients and offered it at below $1 per day as against the then prevailing international pricing of $12,000-$15,000 per year.

The drug opened the doorway for the treatment of HIV/AIDS across third world states, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, Hamied noted.

Because of this, millions are treated in Africa over the years, '' he explained.

In the end of 2019, out of 38 million people living with HIV/AIDS internationally, 25.4 million people (67% ) have had access to antiretroviral therapy (ART) and almost two-thirds of the planet's antiretroviral drugs are supplied from India, he added.

Anyway, the company has also in the past helped in the struggle against infectious diseases like anthrax, bird influenza and swine influenza by creating drugs, Hamied noted.

"The study is designed to encourage the regulatory approval process for the Chinese market and plans to affirm the safety and immunogenicity profile detected in participants from the German and US trials is similar to that of Chinese participants," BioNTech stated in a statement.