A revolutionary COVID 19 drug is soon to be manufactured in India

India is to get its first covid 19 medication

Tuesday, 5th May 2020

Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (CSIR-IICT) based in Hyderabad has undertaken a synthesis of KSMs or the major starting materials for the revolutionary Remdesivir and this may definitely be looked upon as one of the preliminary steps towards making an active pharmaceutical component in a medicine. The IICT has also started various so-called tech demos for the various pharmaceutical product manufacturers like Cipla so that the drug manufacturing can start in India if situation demands.

The first clinically approved drug Remdesivir is a product of Gilead Sciences and it’s usage for treating Covid-19 has been approved in US in line with the findings of clinical data. It has been approved for emergency usage. The manufacturing brand Gilead Sciences has patent laws in favor of the drug manufacturing but the laws support research purposes only and not commercial manufacturing. The drug Remdesiver is to be administered through intravenous infusion. The research conducted on patients revealed that the drug could cure affected patients within 11 days on an average while for the placebo group it took 15 days for patients to get cured.

India is one of the countries listed with WHO for solidarity trials of Covid-19 which is why India has obtained 1000 Remdesivar doses for trial purpose. The Science and Technology plus Health Minister, Harsh Vardhan has talked on the KSMs synthesis and the initiation of tech demos with regard to the drug application…Favipiravir; another revolutionary COVID-19 medication may be launhed in our country soon as CSIR, as reported by Harsh Vardhan, is working towards arranging for clinical trials for that medication.

Dr Srivari Chandrashekhar, the IICT director has informed during his telephonic conversation that KSMs synthesis is a very crucial stage in the development of life saving medications. Also, it has been informed that Remdesivir includes 3 KSMs, namely Furan, Pyrrole and Phosphate Intermediate.

In this context it is worthwhile to quote Dr Srivari Chandrashekhar…"The synthesis of key starting materials (KSM) for any drug is the first step to develop an active pharmaceutical ingredient (API). These key starting materials for Remdesivir are available in India and chemical companies can manufacture these. Other reagents can be sourced from other countries. We started working on KSM for Remdesivir in January end, when trials had begun in China,"

Source: msn