Ascletis Pharma Inc. announced the expansion of its ritonavir oral tablet production capacity, to approximately 530 million tablets per year, to meet the potential escalation in the domestic and global demands. Ascletis has taken multiple measures for expansion of the annual ritonavir production capacity, including adding additional key equipment at the manufacturing facilities of Ascletis Pharmaceuticals Co., Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ascletis.
Ritonavir oral tablet is a pharmacokinetic booster of multiple oral antiviral drugs targeting viral proteases and a component of the approved oral antiviral drug PAXLOVID (Nirmatrelvir 300 mg tablet + ritonavir 100 mg tablet co-administration package).
Ascletis aims to be a global commercial supplier of ritonavir oral tablets. To date, Ascletis owns the only authorized ritonavir oral tablet in China, which has passed bioequivalence study. Ascletis' ritonavir oral tablet was approved in September 2021 by China National Medical Products Administration (国药准字H20213698). Furthermore, Ascletis has submitted marketing authorization applications for ritonavir (100 mg film-coated tablet) in 12 European countries (Germany, France, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Belgium, Poland, Sweden, the Netherlands and Denmark) through its agent in Europe.