PremiumNEW DELHI: A Defence Research Development Organisation lab developed anti-covid-19 therapeutic application of the drug 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2-DG) that helps in faster recovery of hospitalized patients and reduces supplemental oxygen dependence will be handed over for use by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday.
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Premium Premium Health Minister Harsh Vardhan will receive the consignment from Singh, the defence ministry said on Sunday.
The molecule was developed by Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Allied Sciences (INMAS), a lab under the Defence Research and Development Organization or DRDO along with Dr Reddy’s Laboratories (DRL), Hyderabad.
An announcement that the molecule had been developed was made by DRDO on 8 May.
The DRDO, along with its industry partner DRL, Hyderabad, started the clinical trials, with phase-II trials being conducted from May to October 2020. In its phase-II trials, the drug "was found to be safe in covid-19 patients, and showed significant improvement in their recovery", DRDO said in its statement earlier this month.
“Phase-II a was conducted in six 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," it had said.
“In efficacy trends, the patients treated with 2-DG showed faster symptomatic cure than Standard of Care (SoC) on various endpoints. 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 with SoC," the statement had said.
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