DRDO’s Covid treatment drug gets emergency use nod

The Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) granted emergency use permission on May 1, “as adjunct therapy in moderate to severe” patients”. The drug has been developed by DRDO’s Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Allied Sciences (INMAS) in collaboration with Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, Hyderabad.

The DRDO statement mentioned that “clinical trial results have shown that this molecule helps in faster recovery of hospitalised patients and reduces supplemental oxygen dependence” and a “higher proportion of patients treated with 2-DG showed RT-PCR negative conversion in Covid patients”.

Scientists of INMAS-DRDO conducted laboratory experiments in April 2020, the first wave of the pandemic, with the help of Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad and found that this molecule works effectively against SARS-CoV-2 virus and inhibits the viral growth. Phase 2 trials were conducted in May-October last and it was found that the drug was safe for Covid-19 patients, who showed significant improvement in recovery.

“In efficacy trends, the patients treated with 2-DG showed faster symptomatic cure than Standard of Care (SoC) on various endpoints. A significantly favourable trend (2.5 days difference) was seen in terms of the median time to achieving normalisation of specific vital signs parameters when compared to SoC.” DRDO said.