Covid-19: Karnataka government turns to neglected home-grown innovations

For months, Indian Institute of Science (IISc) researchers involved in oxygen technology development and a room-temperature vaccine had wallowed for lack of government interest. Now, as Karnataka flounders in the second wave, they have been given a lifeline.

During a video call with the IISc Director, Professor Govindan Rangarajan, on Thursday, the Minister of Health Dr K Sudhakar inquired about the status of several Covid-19-related projects that had been started last year and offered support.

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Among these is an indigenous oxygen concentrator that can continuously supply up to 10 litres per minute of 93- 95 per cent oxygen concentration. According to Professor Rangarajan, this is more efficient compared to the Chinese concentrators whose output is about 40-50%. However, while the innovation was completed last year, the scientists found few takers for the device.

Professor Praveen C Ramamurthy of IISc’s Department of Material Engineering explained that the concentrator had been tested to run continuously for up to six months in lab conditions without dropping the oxygen percentage. Development of the innovation was completed in August 2020. But plans to manufacture and deploy the concentrator went nowhere.

In the four weeks before the Health Minister made his announcement, the researchers were attempting to drum up interest from all spheres to no avail. “Over the last two weeks, there has been substantial interest. Fifty-nine companies all over India have expressed interest in taking the innovation forward,” Professor Ramamurthy said.

On Thursday, Professor Rangarajan sought Dr Sudhakar’s support to expedite the process of clinical validation and also help in obtaining regulatory approval from the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) for its emergency use.

Professor Ramamurthy described the development as “wonderful”. He added, “If the government gets involved, it will substantially smoothen the supply chain management.”

Warm Vaccine Interest

The second wave has also triggered the health minister’s interest in the “warm” or a heat-stable vaccine being developed at IISc. The project stalled by November for lack of interest.

Professor Raghavan Varadarajan of IISc’s Molecular Biophysics Unit specified that the vaccine could be stored at a temperature of 100 degrees Celsius for 90 minutes or at 70 degrees Celsius for 16 hours and at 37 degrees Celsius for a month. Such a vaccine would make the task of transporting the vaccine to isolated towns and villages much easier without overly relying on cold chain storage.

The vaccine is also unique in that it only uses a specific part of the receptor-binding domain, instead of the entire spike protein. Dr Varadrajan told DH that funds were required to take the vaccine forward into safety and toxicity studies in rats along with process development and GMP manufacture of a clinical trial batch before they are tested in humans.

He had previously said that such studies can cost about Rs 10 crore.

“We require about 6-9 months to finish human trials. But permission for trials has to be given followed toxicity trials,” added Dr Gautham Nadig of Mynvax, which is developing the vaccine.