HYDERABAD: Hyderabad has emerged as a top destination for Covid-19 research, as four of the 16 life sciences companies from the country selected for funding as part of the Covid-19 Research Consortium by Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) and Department of Biotechnology, are from the city.
The four companies are — vaccine manufacturer Bharat Biotech Ltd for utilising inactivated rabies vector platform, Virchow Biotech for the production of purified immunoglobulin G (IgG) at commercial scale from Covid-19 convalescent sera and production of high titres of equine hyper immune globulin for the treatment of Covid- 19 patients on a large scale, University of Hyderabad incubated start-up OncoSeek Bio for developing in-vitro Lung Organoid model, and Huwel Lifesciences for the development of rapid diagnostic testing kits.
The DBT and BIRAC invited applications for the Covid-19 Research Consortium and in the first phase they received around 500 applications from academia and Industry.
The multi-tiered review process is still ongoing and till date 16 proposals of devices, diagnostics, vaccine candidates, therapeutics and other interventions have been recommended for receiving funding support.