NovaLead Pharma, the Pune based pioneer in the field of drug repurposing in India, has deployed its proprietary computational technology for identifying existing drugs which may be potentially effective against the SARS-Cov2 virus as well as for minimizing its impact on human body. Through a complex and extensive computational study involving 2010 approved drugs and 30 potential viral and human targets, NovaLead has identified 42 existing drugs which may be helpful to patients at different stages of SARS-Cov-2 infection.

The CEO of NovaLead Pharma, Mr. Supreet Deshpande said - “Use of existing drugs already approved by the regulators can offer a huge relief in the short to medium term, if found effective against Covid 19. The major advantage with this approach is that the drugs being approved are already proved to be safe for humans, are being actively manufactured and therefore can be immediately put to use in a very short time. If successful, the Physicians can save lives and also prevent early infections from turning critical. The fight against Covid19 is a race against time and we are deploying whole of our computational infrastructure and technology platform armed with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and uses Machine Learning (ML) techniques, along with intensive statistical modeling and simulations.”

Novalead’s technology has an established track record of successfully discovering repurposed drug candidates with its lead drug candidate, Galnobax® currently being in Phase 3 trial in India, for diabetic foot ulcers, a global unmet medical need. The second repurposed candidate identified by NovaLead, NLP91 is for the treatment of psoriasis which will get in clinical trial in 2021.

Informing about status of their research, NovaLead Pharma’s head of research, Dr. Sudhir Kulkarni said – “Novalead is pursuing a multi-pronged strategy involving multiple scientific computational approaches. We have completed three phases of rational computational screenings and our discoveries so far include drugs that show promise as effective treatment either by directly attacking the virus proteins or by empowering the human proteins to minimize it’s spread. Our research effort shall continue to further shortlist candidates for specific stages of infection by SARS-Cov-2 virus including those reaching the Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) stage.”