Reagene Innovations, incubated at ASPIRE-BioNEST, University of Hyderabad (UoH) along with INDRAS Pvt Ltd, Hyderabad is collaborating with Tech Mahindra to identify FDA-approved drugs which can be redeployed as therapeutics for Covid-19.
The collaboration will use both artificial intelligence and rational computational approaches for identifying approved existing drugs, validated using biological and pharmacological methods.
The objective of their collaboration is to stop the entry of the virus into the lung airway epithelial cells. The choice of this strategy is important, because the high transmission rate of Covid-19 is attributed in part to tight attachment of the virus, that facilitates its entry into lung cells. Once the virus is stopped from entering the cells, it is rendered harmless.
Reagene Innovations, a biotech start-up co-founded by Uday Saxena and Subramanyam Vangala, will create a human vascular lung model to study Covid-19 using 3D bioprinting technique. This new technique is being used to create human organs and tissues.
Ratnakar Palakodeti, Vice-President of Life Sciences vertical of Tech Mahindra, said, “this collaboration will bring valuable findings in therapeutic interventions through a faster route than conventional drug discovery as well as add invaluable intellectual property”.
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