All you need to know about new 2-DG drug

The new ray of hope for the treatment of Covid19 mdash 2deoxyDglucose also known as the 2DG drug mdash might soon turn out to be a breakthrough development in fighting the pandemic and lifesaving drug for moderate to severe Covid19 patients The first batch of the drug which was granted approval by the DCGI on May 1 for emergency use was launched on Monday While it is being said that the drug halts the spread of the virus inside the body cells how exactly it works and which subset of patients it should be administered on still remain the questionsDr Y G Sundara Raju senior professor of Medicine at Andhra Medical Collegersquos King George Hospital in Visakhapatnammidday spoke to some of the medical professionals at hospitals and centres across the country where clinical trials for 2DG were conducted and they have described the drugrsquos efficacy as ldquomiraculousrdquo The drug has been indigenously developed by the Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Allied Sciences INMAS in Delhi which is a lab of the Defence Research and Development Organisation DRDO in collaboration with the Hyderabadbased pharmaceutical company Dr Reddyrsquos laboratoriesAlso Read DCGI nods antiCovid19 drug developed by DRDO for emergency useSpeaking to midday Dr Y G Sundara Raju 61 senior professor of Medicine at Andhra Medical Collegersquos King George Hospital in Visakhapatnam said ldquoKing George Hospital was one of the centres that conducted the second and third phase trialsrdquo Raju said that clinical trials were conducted on 13 patients All of them had tested positive for the virus through an RTPCR test mdash which is a criterion for administering 2DG ldquoAll the patients tested negative within five days of administering the drug Only one patient took six days but he too tested negative after that In comparison lesser number of people tested negative in the normal Standard of Care SoC group within the same number of daysrdquoPrevents multiplicationldquoThis is a miraculous achievement mdash but the drug is meant only for mild to moderate cases since it prevents the multiplication of the virus within the bodyrdquo explained Raju adding that the drug spreads through the body like glucose and ultimately leads to viral synthesis ldquoThe drug accumulates in the infected cells The glucose which is actually analogue and not real glucose ends up tricking or cheating the virus and doesnrsquot give it the energy to duplicate Otherwise the virus would be using the hostrsquos glucoserdquo he said adding ldquoOnce the virus is attracted to the analogue glucose it will exist in your body but it wonrsquot go to another cell It stops multiplyingrdquoA government release put out earlier this month stated that in terms of efficacy ldquopatients treated with 2DG showed faster symptomatic cure than SoC on various endpointsrdquoDr Akshay Budhraja 33 senior consultant at Aakash Healthcare Super Speciality Hospitalrsquos Department of Respiratory and Sleep Medicine in Delhi is one of the 27 principal investigators of the 2DG trialsGood resultsldquoThe trials at our centre were conducted on a limited number of patients It is very difficult to convince patients and get them to participate in a trial while they are suffering from the viral infection This is why it is difficult to conduct clinical trials in IndiardquoldquoThe number of patients among whom the trial was conducted was not significant but the results were good in many ways for those patients who had moderate to severe Covid19 infections The conversion from positive to negative was extremely quick as compared to SoC Many patients at our centre turned negative on Day 3 or Day 4 of administering the drugrdquo said Dr BudhrajaBreaking down the effect of 2DG on infected cells he said ldquoIt is a glycolysis effect The virus needs glucose for its growth but instead of glucose it binds to this 2DG moleculeAfter that the infected cells donrsquot grow the virus becomes dead or dormant and stops multiplying because of which there is a decrease of viral loadrdquoTiming importantBudhraja further stated that the timing of administering 2DG was extremely importantldquoIt needs to be given to symptomatic patients who have moderate to severe infection It should not be given in mild cases because these patients although they have fever and cough have no breathlessness and no requirement of external oxygenrdquo