Eli Lilly accelerating baricitinib's availability in India following permission for restricted emergency use as a COVID-19 therapy.

Lilly is offering donations of baricitinib to the Indian government through Direct Relief while simultaneously working with local Indian pharmaceutical companies to execute royalty-free voluntary licensing agreements to accelerate the manufacturing and distribution of the medicine in India during the pandemic. An initial donation of 400,000 baricitinib tablets is being made immediately available to the Indian government for eligible hospitalized COVID-19 patients in India and Lilly will work urgently to increase the quantity of donated product multifold over the coming weeks. On 3 May 2021, Lilly received emergency use authorization by the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization, a division of Ministry of Health, for its usage in eligible hospitalized COVID-19 patients requiring supplemental oxygen, invasive mechanical ventilation, or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO). Baricitinib is an oral medication currently registered in India for the treatment of moderate to severe active rheumatoid arthritis in adult patients who have responded inadequately to, or who are intolerant to one or more disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs.