India Set To Develop COVID-19 Drugs, Cipla and CSIR-IICT Collaborate

COVID19 Drugs by Cipla & IICT

In order to manufacture three promising chemical compounds with anti-viral properties to treat COVID-19 immediately, the Indian Pharmaceutical giant Cipla has voluntarily come forward and has sought the help of Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR)-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT) for making the required Active Pharma Ingredients (APIs).

Y.K Hamied, Cipla chairman had requested S. Chandrasekhar, the director of IICT and Prathama S. Mainkar, the principal scientist on Tuesday to start preparing the chemical compounds —  Bolaxavir, Remidesivir, and Favipiravir, after which the next phase of trials can be started by his pharma-biotech firm.

S. Chandrasekhar and Prathama S. Mainkar said that “The chemical compounds Remidesivir and Favipiravir had undergone clinical trials already and thus, the raw materials are readily available and we will not need much time to make them. To prepare them, around six to ten weeks would be required. In our modern Kilo lab, we have scientists working in two shifts as we had proactively started making the molecules. We will now begin the process to start Bolaxavir molecule.”

Narrowing down to the chemical compounds required is not that difficult with advanced computational and mathematical models, deep data mining

, and artificial intelligence explained the director. He said, “To begin, we will make about 100gm of each molecule. Before approaching the regulatory authority to manufacture the drug to cure COVID-19, Cipla will follow it up with bio-equivalence tests, on dogs and human trials.”

Dr. Chandrasekhar said, “In the next six months, the drug should be in the market. Cipla will be investing substantial resources into the making of the drug. We had previously helped them in making drugs for cancer, AIDS, etc and this is not the first time we are collaborating with the pharma giant.”

With 40,000 units ready, the institute is prepared to provide Reverse Transcriptase PCR or RT-PCR enzyme used for COVID-19 testing kits and to make more of them on demand, the process is already started.

COVID19 Drugs by Cipla & IICT – Source