The Hyderabad-based Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT) has developed a convenient and cost-effective synthetic process for producing antiviral drug Favipiravir.

The press statement by Ministry of Science and Technology indicates that as a collaborative effort with the industry, the IICT has transferred the entire process and significant quantities of pharma-grade API of Favipiravir to the pharmaceutical major Cipla, with whom it had tied up earlier to develop drugs which can prove effective against Covid-19.

Cipla would be conducting investigations on this drug in India for which it has approached the regulatory authority, DCGI, for approval. Favipiravir is in the clinical trials for Covid-19 and is under use for treatment of influenza in many countries. The IICT has also been working on another antiviral drug named Bolaxavir, which is expected to be ready by January next year.

Apart from this, the institute has also been working on the production of other drugs, including Arbidol and Triazavarin apart from Hydroxychloroquine intermediates, the RT PCR enzyme and viral transport medium for hospitals.

IICT’s COVID testing kits

IICT will be making affordable RT-PCR kit indigenously using recombinant technology.The institute has partnered with a Hyderabad-basedGenomix Biotech, to optimise the kit for COVID-19 diagnosis, by adding ‘Taqman’ probes.

CSIR-IICT and Genomix Biotech plan to approach the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) or its recognised laboratory for validation to launch the product in a couple of weeks, informed director S. Chandrashekar.

A research team led by A. Anthony had worked for the last two-and-a-half months to come out with an indigenous version of the testing kit, which was being imported mostly from United States and Europe. “With COVID-19 pandemic, the demand was pretty high and there were limitations on how much could be imported so we took up the challenge of devising our own kit and succeeded in making the key three enzymes required for the test or 80% of it,” Dr. Anthony said.

“We have prepared sufficient material to make upto two lakh testing kits a week and once we get the necessary approvals, we can scale up based on the demand from the government. Our collaborator needs to add the COVID-19 probes to complete the kit,” he said.

This tie up is expected to produce a much cheaper quality RT-PCR kit or at least 50% less than the prevailing cost of about ?4,500 and help meet the huge demand during this pandemic.

This RT-PCR kit can also be used in other disease diagnostics of humans like cancer, and even diseases of animals and plants. “This technology will last long as it is not restricted to COVID alone and bring down the overall cost of RT-PCR based diagnosis,” he added.

Source: News Minute, PIB

Indian Institute of Chemical Technology has developed a cost-effective synthetic process for producing antiviral drug Favipiravir and has also developed an affordable RT-PCR kit.