CRAIGAVON-based pharmaceuticals giant Almac has been awarded $500,000 (£377,000) by a Bill Gates-backed programme to help develop a drug used to treat Covid-19.
The award to Almac Sciences will help develop cost effective, scalable processes for the production of the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) of the drug remdesivir.
The money was provided by the philantropic Covid-19 Therapeutics Accelerator, set up by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome and Mastercard.
Remdesivir, an antiviral medication, is the first drug to be approved by the US Food and Drug Administration as a treatment for Covid-19 after a trial showed it cut recovery time by five days.
Almac said the grant would support its efforts to combat coronavirus through the rapid process development and manufacturing of remdesivir.
It comes just six months after Almac announced it was supporting two Covid-19 clinical studies in Sub-Saharan Africa through a grant also awarded from the Therapeutics Accelerator.
“We are delighted to receive funding from the Therapeutics Accelerator to apply our skills in the fight against COVID-19,” said Dr Stefan Mix, head of Biocatalysis, Almac Sciences.
“With the skillset of our multidisciplinary teams, we are confident that our developmental approach to the manufacture of remdesivir will positively impact patients’ lives who in urgent need, regardless of their location.”
Prof Tom Moody, VP of technology development and commercialisation at Almac Sciences and Arran Chemical Company, added: “This project highlights Almac’s strength in technology deployment through application of both innovative flow chemistry and biocatalysis technologies to support development of processes which are economical, greener and safer to perform.”
