After the announcement of MegaLab, IIT Alumni Council announces MegaTx

IIT Alumni Council announces the MegaTx initiative to identify, optimise and indigenously manufacture biotherapeutics for the treatment of C19. The
Council has proposed a two stage process. The expeditious pathway will be using
antibodies harvested from human plasma collected through blood donation camps that seek donors who have recovered from C19. The subsequent stage involves identification and characterisation of identified neutralising antibodies for mass production using recombinant DNA technology: i.e. to manufacture and purify the antibodies from stable,
high expressing recombinant cell lines.

The convalescent plasma therapy proposed at the NSCI Dome is the first step towards identifying and characterizing of antibodies for the prevention and treatment of C19.The plan is to identify and characterize the antibodies for the treatment of C19 and to manufacture the same in adequate quantity using recombinant mammalian cell lines to stably express them.

“The C19 Task Force of IIT Alumni Council had accepted the challenge to develop indigenous biotherapeutics in India to help save lives of those adversely affected by C19. We started off initially with the Platinae Open Source Stack which catalysed
successful clinical trials on plasma therapy. We are now taking a giant step and the MegaTx initiative will address the challenge of indigenously producing the required BioTherapeutics cost effectively and administering them safely . This scale of biotherapeutic manufacturing has not been attempted in India.” said Ravi Sharma, President and Chief Volunteer of the IIT Alumni Council.

“In order to meet the immediate need to save lives of critical patients, we are proposing
to harvest antibodies from blood donated by recovered C19 patients. Each donor can contribute around 25 ml weekly or one unit of blood roughly every three months safely. The task at hand thus is to create the infrastructure to process around 50,000 litres of blood every month to extract relevant immunoglobins for intravenous administration. IIT ALUMNI COUNCIL MEGATX INITIATIVE TO TARGET SAFE AND SURE C19 TREATMENT PAGE 3

Convalescent plasma therapy is primarily suited for small patient populations; not something that is easily scalable for mass deployment. Therefore,investment in highly productive recombinant production systems is a must” added Dr Arindam Bose, a IIT Alumnus, Chairperson of Therapeutics Group of the C19 Task Force and a well-known expert in the area of BioTherapeutics product development and manufacturing. His biodata is appended to this press release.

We have innovated right from the start, used AI, modularized remotelycontrolled ICU’s and collected valuable data in doing so .

“I have spent a significant part of my career helping build manufacturing plants for the
production of blood plasma derived products. There is a need to use plasma derived immunoglobins in the short term by using existing industry capacity and to rapidly move to monoclonal antibodies (MAB) by either hiring or setting up biotechnology
plants for the mass manufacture of the identified and characterised antibodies. Since India does not permit paid donors or commercial trade in blood products, it is very challenging to create a sustainable ecosystem based on human harvesting of
antibodies alone,” added Ashish Chitnis, an IIT Alumnus and Project Lead for a leading global company in the plasma derivatives business. His biodata is appended to this press release.

"NSCI Dome, a facility used hitherto for rock shows and music concerts was transformed within a space of 5 days into the first jumbo facility outside of a hospital environment used to treat Covid patients . With the help of IIT Alumni Council we used
technology to overcome shortage of healthcare professionals needed to treat the increasing number of patients in Worli which was one of India’s first red zones. We have innovated right from the start , used AI , modularized remotely controlled ICU’s and
collected valuable data in doing so . We have treated over 1700 people inclusive of cancer patients , pregnant women , those above 60 yrs. and with co-morbidities with an impressive recovery rate of 74% at the dome . We have so far discharged over 1450 people with an extremely low mortality rate ( <.001% ). I am extremely excited that we shall soon start convalescent plasma therapy at NSCI Dome to fine tune the Mega TX IIT ALUMNI COUNCIL MEGATX INITIATIVE TO TARGET SAFE AND SURE C19 TREATMENT PAGE 4 treatment protocol" Said Dr Muffazal Lakdawala, Chairman of the Doctors Group of the
IIT Alumni Council and In-charge of the NSCI Dome Covid Facility in Mumbai. His biodata is appended to this press release.