Amid growing complaints of acute short supply of crucial medications like Tociluzumab and Remdesevir, which are being sold in the city at inflated prices, the state government has finally decided to intervene. On Saturday, the state government invited a tender that would fix the rates of three kinds of drugs needed for treatment of COVID-19 patients that will allow all private hospitals in Maharashtra to purchase them directly from the vendors.

Over the past few weeks, there have been complaints of Tocilizumab and Remdesevir being sold at arbitrary rates due to shortage of supply. In order to curb such activities, the Directorate of Medical Research floated a tender on Saturday to fix the prices for 20,000 vials of Tociluzumab, 60,000 vials of Remdesevir and 6.8 lakh tablets of Favipravir for patients in Maharashtra. "We have floated the tender and have invited bids from all manufacturers of the medication. They will have time till Tuesday to respond. After we fix the prices, we will share the details of the vendor and hospitals will directly be able to purchase the medication for their patients. There will no longer be the need to buy it from chemists," said Dr TP Lahane, director of DMER.