New Delhi : The Central Council for Research in Ayurvedic Sciences (CCRAS), an autonomous body under the Ministry of Ayush, is conducting clinical studies on eight drugs while nine others have completed clinical study and another 15 are under preclinical safety toxicity study. It has also developed some of the important drugs including for malaria, epilepsy, diabetes mellitus, psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, among others.
The Council has been developing drugs through the drug development process in the past and currently has eight drugs under clinical study, for diseases including hypertension, asthma, occupational stress, non alcoholic fatty liver and wound healing, among others.
It has completed nine clinical studies for drugs including Dengue, increasing quality of life in cancer patients, geriatric health, eye drops for conjunctivitis, filariasis, Covid-19 and mild to moderate Covid-19 and an anti dandruff drug. Another drug for cancer has completed phase I study.
“Drug development is a continuous process and takes around 5-7 years through various stages like standardisation of ingredients / formulations, safety/toxicity studies followed by clinical studies, compilation of data and commercialisation of the newly developed drug,” said Minister of Ayush Sarbananda Sonowal.
“In the past three years, CCRAS is in process of developing various ayurvedic formulations for diseases like: Dengue, Migraine, improving quality of life in cancer patients, mental retardation in children, geriatric health, conjunctivitis, cancer, diabetes, asthma, filariasis, occupational stress, ATT induced hepatotoxicity, non-alcoholic fatty liver diseases, antenatal care (anemia), antenatal care (oedema), malaria /mild to moderate Covid-19,” he said recently in Parliament.
The CCRAS is conducting Clinical trials for validation of classical ayurvedic formulations and also for new ayurvedic drug development adopting prevalent guidelines such as good collection, processing and storage practices for collection of medicinal plants (raw drugs), good manufacturing practices (GMP), standard operating procedures for formulation of quality drugs, carrying out pre-clinical studies as per Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) for raw drugs, registration of clinical trials in Clinical Trial Registry of India (CTRI) of ICMR, Good Clinical Practices Guidelines for ASU drugs (GCP-ASU), Ministry of Ayush and ethical guidelines for bio-medical research (ICMR) and World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines for traditional medicines etc. as per requirement and introduced in the market after ascertaining the effectiveness and safety, he added.
Some of important drugs developed by CCRAS since its inception include Ayush-64 for malaria and mild to moderate Covid-19; Ayush-56 for epilepsy; Ayush 82 for diabetes mellitus; Nimbatiktam for psoriasis and duodenal ulcer; Ayush Poshak Yoga and Peya for immunomodulatory, anti stress and general health promotion; Shunthi Guggulu for rheumatoid arthritis; Ksharasutra for anorectal disorders; Ayush Balarasayana for promotion of health in children; Ayush Ghutti for prevention of diarrhoea and fever in children; and ayurvedic formulations for antenatal care.
