Beximco Pharmaceuticals of Bangladesh will pour out an undisclosed amount of money in the Serum Institute of India to develop a COVID-19 drug, more than a week following the visit of Indian Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla to Dhaka. Beximco Pharmaceuticals will be the exclusive distributor of the vaccines that SII will develop and produce in Bangladesh.

The agreement announced by the Bangladeshi generic drug company comes after the government disclosed earlier that it was prepared to conduct clinical tests of experimental vaccines that India is developing as both nations seek to contain the spread of the disease. The Bangladesh government also said it had approved the late-phase test of a potential treatment by a Chinese company, Sinovac Research and Development Co.

In a press statement, Beximco Pharmaceuticals pointed out that it will provide financial support to boost the study and development of the candidate drug, which will be revised based on pricing under conditions of the proposed deal. The number of shots to be given to Bangladesh and the amount of funding that Beximco will provide will depend on regulatory approvals, SII's manufacturing volume and earlier pledge to other governments.

The Serum Institute of India has teamed up with AstraZeneca, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Gavi, to manufacture over 1 billion shots of the drug to supply countries around the globe. The European tests have shown a very promising outcome and are estimated to be granted state approval by end of 2020, the Economic Times of India said.

Beximco -- which pointed out that the number of doses to be supplied to the country on a priority basis -- and BPL's investment amount will be dependent on regulatory approvals, SII's production capacity and earlier commitments to other countries.

According to top executives of Beximco and SII, the historic deal mirrors the yearning for cooperation between the two nations and they are optimistic that their partnership can help reduce the ill effects of the global health crisis. The Serum Institute of India is the biggest producer of vaccines in the world in terms of volume.

India's health authorities registered a record daily increase of 77,266 coronavirus infections on Friday, pushing the country's total number of cases to almost 3.4 million with 61,530 mortalities. Bangladesh reported it had 47 additional fatalities and 2,211 new confirmed infections on the same day, making the country's total number of infections rise to 306,794 with 4,174 fatalities.