THD NewsDesk, New Delhi: The Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) has given approval for the emergency use of the drug 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2-DG) to treat moderate cases of Covid 19. This has been allowed as an adjunct therapy which will be used in addition to the primary treatment.
DRDO said in a statement,
“Being a generic molecule and analogue of glucose, it can be easily produced and made available in plenty.”
The statement further read,
“The drug has been developed by DRDO lab Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Allied Sciences in collaboration with Dr Reddy’s Laboratories. Clinical trial have shown that this molecule helps in faster recovery of hospitalized patients and reduces supplemental oxygen dependence.”
According to DRDO, patients treated by this method showed faster improvement than Standard of Care (SoC) on various endpoints in the efficacy trends.
The statement added,
“A significantly favourable trend (2.5 days difference) was seen in terms of the median time to achieving normalization of specific vital signs parameters when compared to SOC.”
The drug comes in powder form in sachets, which is taken orally by dissolving it in water.
“It accumulates in the virus-infected cells and prevents virus growth by stopping viral synthesis and energy production,” said the DRDO.
In April 2020, during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, INMAS-DRDO scientists conducted laboratory experiments of 2-DG with the help of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad. They observed that this method is able to fight the SARS-CoV-2 virus and inhibits viral growth.
The Phase-II trials (including dose-ranging) was conducted from May to October 2020 and the drug wasfound to be safe and showed significant improvement in patient’s recovery.
The DRDO said,
“Phase IIa was conducted in 6 hospitals and Phase IIb (dose-ranging) clinical trial was conducted at 11 hospitals all over the country. Phase-II trial was conducted on 110 patients.”
After getting approval from the DCGI now the 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2-DG) drug would be used along with the primary mode of treatment to treat Covid 19.
Source: Mint
