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Task Force on Repurposing of Drugs for COVID19

The Principal Scientific Advisor to the GoI, Dr K VijayRaghavan, has constituted a S&T Core Group on COVID19.

Under the aegis of the S&T Core Group on COVID19, a Task Force has been constituted focused on Repurposing of Drugs for COVID19 (in short “TFORD-COVID19“)

The Task Force is being coordinated by:

      • Dr V Premnath, Head, NCL Innovations at  CSIR-NCL and Director, Venture Center
      • Dr Anurag Agarwal, Director, CSIR-IGIB

Project title: Speeding up the Lab to Market Journey: Repurposing Drugs for COVID-19

The Nerve Center for the Coordination will be at Venture Center, Pune (located in the campus of CSIR-NCL).

This project is supported by:

Start date: 16 March 2020

Scope (as of 23 March 2020):

      • Drugs approved for other indications in any part of the world
      • At this stage, we are not looking at NCEs except if it is in advanced stages of clinical trials
      • We are not looking at other medical products — only drugs! Other Task Forces are looking at other products.

Key goals:

      • High quality information collection and dissemination to key decision makers in this crisis
      • Systematic analysis, organisation, categorisation, prioritisation, frameworks to enable decision making
      • Inter-disciplinary advisory group; Engagement platforms; Learned opinions
      • Foresight on path to market and bedside; suggest alternative routes to market
      • Anticipate barriers and suggest mechanisms to remove barriers
      • Virtual network of stakeholders; Connecting the dots
      • Industry engagement

Key components planned:

      • Compiled information on Drug Candidates
      • Reports by Nerve Center Team to PSA
      • Inter-disciplinary Advisory Group; Position/ Strategy Papers
      • Virtual Translation Network
      • Information on Path to Market/ Bedside
      • Requests to PSA

You can participate and contribute to this efforts in the following ways:

      • Publicise this effort on any media platform. help us find useful resources and leads.
      • Send us any relevant information on leads at covid19@nclinnovations.org
      • If you are an expert in the field (on any aspect of development or translation of drugs to the market), you can write to us with your resume. Email to covid19@nclinnovations.org
      • If you are drug developer or manufacturer who needs to leverage our networks, please contact us at covid19@nclinnovations.org . See full contact information in the Contact link.
      • Please note that this is a race against time and our team may be busy. So please be patient. We will try and get back to you as soon as possible. 
      • Participation in structured groups only by invitation by the Nerve Center.