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Covid-19 Unlocking India's Capacity In Life Sciences

Today, for India, the COVID-19 pandemic is a strong catalyst to re-inforce the Make in India initiative to facilitate investment, promote innovation, enhance skill development, protect intellectual property and build best in class manufacturing infrastructure in the life sciences sector. For fostering an innovation ecosystem or hub within India, interventions across three dimensions will be required which includes encouraging industry-academia collaboration; increasing R&D investment; and reinvigorating government support.

COVID-19 Likely To Linger On Till 2021?

Easy mode of transmission, nature of the virus, population density, environmental condition, social culture are the major contributors to the rapid spreading of COVID-19 across the globe. But in order to break the chain of transmission, one needs to understand the transmission dynamics of this ongoing pandemic, which is somehow unclear.

ICMR vaccine timeline - An unrealistic approach?

A letter written by the ICMR Director General Prof Balram Bhargava to the heads of 12 selected institutions for fast-track clinical trials of the indigenous COVID-19 vaccine, COVAXIN and launching it by August 15 has stirred waves of uncertainty across the country.

“Our technology can reduce SARSCoV-2 particles by more than 99.9%”

With the development of a medication to combat the novel coronavirus still in the works, it has become imperative to find an immediate solution for this global pandemic.

Building healthcare ecosystem around a digital nervous system

In 2003, when SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) was first reported, the origins of the virus were a mystery. Scientists suspected it may have come from bats, but it wasn’t until 2012 when the second major coronavirus (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome – MERS) outbreak was spreading across borders, that researchers confirmed its provenance. At the time of their discovery, they warned us of the outbreak potential of coronaviruses, urging the global community to learn from our past to help us prepare.

Repurposing Hepatitis Drugs For Covid-19 Treatment

While researchers are still finding novel ways to cure hepatitis, the virus has shown them a new direction. HCV shares similarity with the currently prevalent SARS-CoV-2 by having a single-stranded RNA, while HBV has a double-stranded DNA as its genetic material. As a result, repurposing of existing therapies has emerged as a major area of drug development for COVID-19 and selected hepatitis drugs among others are being studied for repositioning to manage the pandemic.

30 COVID-19 Vaccine Projects Afoot In India

When it comes to India that produces 60 per cent of the world’s vaccines and accounts for 60-80 per cent of the United Nations’ annual vaccine procurement, development of a new vaccine is a major task. But what works in India’s favour in the race for a vaccine is that a number of Indian firms are key players in the global vaccine industry. So, along with employing different technology platforms for vaccine development, India has adopted a cross-functional collaborative approach, globally and locally, wherein currently 30 vaccine projects are afoot against COVID-19.

“India should focus on healthcare innovation and access post-COVID-19”

As economies around the world are suffering from the impact of COVID-19, businesses are experiencing losses, workers are without jobs, and many face the challenge of a complete upheaval of lifestyle.

Vera Smart Healthcare amplifies COVID-19 surveillance

Hyderabad based startup Vera Smart Healthcare has launched Traveller Tracking System (TTS) to screen railways, bus stations, Hyderabad airport and will soon cover all district borders of entry to Telangana, to track plus monitor coronavirus contacts.

The Lancet HCQ study report: A knee-jerker during pandemic?

Praised as a potential miracle cure, hundreds of trials got initiated across the globe for HCQ. Scientists started trying the drugs in low and high doses; alone or combined with other drugs in patients with mild or severe disease. But this hope recently got struck by a big blow when a study came along claiming that these antimalarial drugs not only look ineffective but are downright deadly.

Rise of 3D printing to combat COVID-19

India is still in the early stages of 3D printing deployment and in the post-COVID-19 world, 3D printing and perhaps 3D bioprinting will play a major role in advancing and improving healthcare in India.

Time to end distancing of traditional and modern medicine

The COVID-19 pandemic is taking a toll on the entire country. As the number of cases is ever increasing, the flattened curve feels like a distant dream. The hospitals, emergency professionals and healthcare services have been burdened and have exhausted their services. Many patients have been left absolutely helpless as we hear stories of lack of proper infrastructure and management to cater to the needs of such a huge population. Is there a better way to manage this crisis? Is there a solution in our own backyard that we are ignoring?

Applications of controlled freeze-thaw system in the production of modern biologicals

Vikrant is M.Tech in Bioprocess Technology with an accomplished 10+ years of experience in bioprocess Industry with a major focus on technology transfer, scale-up & validation of vaccines and biosimilars molecules. He has expertise in validation, downstream processing unit operation viz. chromatography, filtration-Depth, TFF & Nano-filtration. He has also been engaged in designing and successful qualification of BSL 2 manufacturing facility.

Reshaping health behaviours

In the past three months, healthcare practices have advanced by several years. The year 2020 will be remembered as the year that reshaped health behaviours through accelerated use of digital technologies.

Is India self-reliant to manufacture APIs locally?

The KSM is manufactured only by China. So Indian pharma needs to find a way of manufacturing KSM through alternative routes

Thermo Fisher Brings SARS-CoV-2 Sequencing Program

To accelerate national, multi-institutional efforts focused on mapping coronavirus transmission and epidemiological studies, Thermo Fisher Scientific has announced the SARS-CoV-2 Global Access Sequencing Program for research consortia and industry groups battling the spread of the pandemic globally.

Is PPE Shortage Driving Adoption Of Robots For Assistance?

Anticipating the threat on healthcare workers in contracting corona infection, hospitals in India have started turning to robots for COVID-19 management. Robots help lessen exposure of healthcare workers to the virus thereby reducing danger of infection. They not only help in contactless screening but are also capable of other operations.

Traditional Medicines & Covid-19

Allopathic drugs are already being tried to treat COVID-19 but even with promising results these drugs always comes with some side-effects unlike in case of traditional system of medicines.

Covid-19 Testing Continues To Be A Pressing Issue

One of the key constraints for Indian researchers and manufacturers to develop quickly testing kits in the country is dependency for raw materials such as enzymes, antigens, antibodies etc., required for research and manufacturing. All this is leading to delays in development of high quality and affordable testing solutions. Government should provide necessary support to develop the “ancillary” support for the researchers and manufacturers so that India can become self-reliant.

Roche Diagnostics India unveils Elecsys Anti-SARS-CoV-2 assay

Roche Diagnostics India has announced that it is bringing their serology-based SARSCoV-2 test - Elecsys AntiSARS-CoV-2 – having received the Import License issued by the Central Drug Standard Control Organization (CDSCO), due to the emergency health situation in public interest.

“Our efforts are focused on offering a safe and efficacious COVID-19 vaccine”

Zydus Cadila, an innovation-driven, global pharmaceutical company, has recently received the approval from the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) for use of Saroglitazar in the treatment of type II diabetes mellitus as an add on therapy with Metformin. The drug was previously approved in the year 2013 for the treatment of hypertriglyceridemia and diabetic dyslipidemia in India. More than 1 million patients are being treated with Lipaglyn. BioSpectrum has spoken to Dr Sharvil Patel, Managing Director of Zydus Cadila about the future plans for the product and about the accelerated research programme launched for the development of the vaccine against coronavirus.

IF WISHES WERE VACCINES…

The long road till commercial availability compelling sustained funding at unprecedented levels. Combined with the $ 2 billion outlay expected from GAVI / CEPI and various government institutions and alliances across the globe, the total economic interest invested in this research would be at a never-before-seen or imagined level.

“We intend to establish Takeda India as a CoE in clinical research”

Japanese multinational pharmaceutical company Takeda announced the appointment of Koki Sato as the Head for the company’s India business on April 1, 2020. Sato has been a part of Takeda since 2003 and has grown within the company to hold various senior international roles across multiple functions, including commercial operations, finance, and HR. Prior to this role, he was the General Manager of Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova (UBM) Cluster in Takeda’s ICMEA (India, C.I.S., Middle East, Turkey, and Africa) area. BioSpectrum India took this opportunity to interact with Koki Sato, General Manager (GM), Takeda Pharmaceuticals India Pvt. Ltd to find out more about the growth of the India business at Takeda.

Relex Health focuses on medication therapy management

Bengaluru based startup Relex Health recently announced a first-of-its-kind Medication Therapy Management Programme in India.

Building indigenous DIAGNOSTIC CAPABILITIES

India is facing a bigger burden of not having enough diagnostic kits in hand. Specifically, there is a shortage of reagents and consumables required to carry out the diagnostic tests for COVID-19. In order to overcome this burden, India is reaching out to South Korea, USA, Germany and China to arrange for more kits in order to increase the current testing capacity for COVID-19. Although this step might help India to some extent in its current containment plan, the real need can only be fulfilled by accelerating indigenous COVID-19 diagnostics manufacturing.

Emerging Stronger: Bioscience Businesses In And Beyond The War On Covid-19

Despite the COVID crises, according to AIOCD AWACS the Indian Pharma Market registered a surprising growth of 8.9 per cent in March 2020 with some evidence of panic buying in chronic medicines. In the stock market too, pharma stocks have managed to retain investor interest amid deep fall in nearly every other sector. Nifty Pharma, at well over 7400 levels, is up by 20 per cent over the last month, and is showing the promise of crossing its 52-week high in the coming months.

Multiplying Efforts To Beat Covid- 19

The government along with the industry is exploring every other possibility to combat the COVID-19 pandemic whether in the form of vaccines, drugs, diagnostic tests, medical equipment or therapeutic interventions. The major objective is to develop a long term solution by pooling proper resources, sharing knowledge and collaboration.

Time to build Indian Medtech industry to global reckoning

India has built amazing infrastructure of science especially interdisciplinary and translational aspects of biology in the last 15 years despite history of low level of investments both in R&D (0.8 per cent of the GDP) as well as healthcare (1.3 per cent of the GDP). This needs to change not just as a stopgap measure but greater investment, consistently over a longerrange horizon, is important. And there is need to leverage the strengths and find strategic responses to the gaps in a mission mode.

BIOSPECTRUM WEBINAR ON “EXPLORING VARIOUS ASPECTS OF COVID-19”- “Indian economy will take 2-3 years to come back to normal position”

As the number of COVID-19 cases continue to rise all across the globe, healthcare authorities and experts are coming together to identify gaps and work together to accelerate and fund priority research needed to help stop this outbreak and prepare for any future outbreaks. With an aim of exploring the various aspects associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, BioSpectrum India conducted a webinar on April 16,which saw participation of industry experts sharing their views on how can India tackle this outbreak.

A RELIEF OR ADDED THREAT FOR INDIA?

Researchers across the globe have observed that there may be a unique mutation in the viral strain infecting the Indian population. And may be that is the reason why few countries are suffering large numbers of fatalities as compared to India.