CHENNAI: As India is scrambling for key starting materials to make vaccines and drugs during the pandemic, a Chennai-based start-up is in the process of coming up with a technology for the synthesis of one of the chemicals used in Covid-19 vaccine preparation.
Dr Menaga Magendran, managing director, Bioneemtec India, told Express that the company filed a patent for the ‘Process of synthesizing quinoline and rhein-derived chiral molecules effective against Covid-19’.
“The recent outbreak of Covid-19 belonging to the SARS family was analyzed for its activity and structure. From its 3D structure and the infection path, scientists found that antimalarial compounds like hydroxychloroquine and anti-HIV compounds like Remdesivir are active in controlling the Covid-19. The present invention provides a process for synthesizing both quinolone and rhein-derived active chiral compounds with controlling activity against Covid-19,” said Dr Menaga.
“This apart, we identified one chemical which is used as a virus deactivator in vaccine preparation, that seems to be imported from abroad. Our experts are working on the synthesis of this chemical using a continuous flow chemistry reactor,” she added.
India is importing 80 percent of key starting materials from China. Menaga’s company located at Siruseri is one of the few firms in the country which is working on ways to synthesize the key starting materials using green chemistry methodology.
The success of the company is the usage of the continuous flow chemistry reactor, where they are developing key starting materials and identifying novel routes for the synthesis of API using green chemistry in which they are supporting international pharma clients too.
Having expertise from China, Menaga and her husband Magendran, who have returned to India after working six to seven years in China, want India to be self-sufficient in the key starting material or raw materials for drugs. Usually pharma platforms have four different phases.
These include key starting materials, Intermediates, (chemical compounds which form the building blocks of the active pharmaceutical ingredient), the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API); and lastly the formulations, the process in which different chemical substances, including the active drug, are combined to produce a final medicinal product.
J Jayaseelan, managing director for Saimirra Innopharm Limited and chairman of Indian Drug Manufacturers Association, said that key starting material is thriving in China with government support.