NEW DELHI: Oral anti-viral drug 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2-DG), developed by the DRDO and being touted as a potential game-changer in the battle against Covid-19, was first used in a human clinical study on brain tumour patients by Dr A K Banerji at AIIMS, Delhi, along with Dr Viney Jain, former director of INMAS LAB (DRDO).
Dr Banerji, who has served at AIIMS’ neurosurgery department for 30 years, told The New Indian Express that the drug was reasonably effective on cancer but could not comment on its efficacy on Covid-19 patients.
“We used the drug for brain cancer. I can tell you that it was reasonably effective. And we had hoped that it would get approval for commercial production, but that didn’t happen. But Covid is not cancer. I don’t want to make presumptions whether it will work for Covid-19 patients or not,” Dr Banerji said.
2-DG, developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation’s (DRDO’s) leading laboratory Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Allied Sciences (INMAS) in collaboration with Hyderabad-based Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, has been granted emergency approval by the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) for Covid treatment. It has been studied in over 200 clinical trials for the treatment of various cancers globally.
“Components are the same as the drug, then and now. Dr Jain, a friend of mine from AIIMS, was working at the DRDO laboratory. He had convinced me to use the drug on cancer patients. We had used it as a radiation sensitiser,” Dr Banerji said.
Dr Jain had joined the faculty as an assistant professor in the biophysics department of AIIMS in 1973 and played a crucial role in bringing the drug to India for the first time.
“It had to be imported from the US at that time and was expensive. If we had to use it, it had to be pre-ordered. Then the DRDO gave a patent to a firm in MP so that it could be commercially viable. But another company was competing for the same drug and that became popular,” Dr Banerji said.
‘2-DG option for patients requiring Oxygen therapy’
Dr Deepak Gupta, a professor of Neurosurgery, AIIMS, who is doing further research on the drug’s usage, said the concept of using the glucose analogue 2-DG for optimising radiotherapy was developed by Dr Jain. From preclinical and clinical studies, he showed that 2-DG can function as a differential radio-chemo-modifier, which can sensitise cancer cells while protecting normal cells.
The differential effects of 2-DG are based on the Warburg effect. Pre-clinical studies in murine models confirmed this hypothesis.
“It is a glucose molecule analogue which can’t undergo further glycolysis. Monocytes/macrophages in Covid lungs (proliferative tissues: inflammation/tumour) become highly glycolytic after infection and facilitate SARS-CoV-2 replication which accumulates in virally infected cells and prevents virus growth by stopping viral synthesis and energy production.
It enhances cellular damage and cell death by inhibiting repair and recovery. 2-DG can be considered for admitted Covid patients requiring medical oxygen therapy for moderate to severe covid patients as an adjunct to existing treatment,” Dr Gupta said.
In April 2020, INMAS-DRDO scientists had conducted experiments with the help of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology and found that this molecule works effectively against Covid and inhibits viral growth. Phase-III trials were conducted on 220 patients between December 2020 and March 2021 at 27 Covid hospitals.
First used in clinical study on brain tumour patients
DRDO’s drug was first used in a human clinical study on brain tumour patients by Dr A K Banerji at AIIMS, Delhi, along with Dr Viney Jain, former director of INMAS LAB (DRDO).