In order to take the antibacterial and antiviral compound for anti-TB activity isolated from marine actinomycete to the next level of development, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has invited potential agencies interested in performing toxicity and bioavailability tests.

Senior ICMR officials said that the toxicity and bioavailability tests to bring this antibacterial and antiviral compound to the next level included bio-analytical method development for a natural compound, blood/plasma stability testing, solubility testing, protein binding assay, single dose oral and intravenous pharmacokinetics in rodents and acute toxicity in rodents.

Officials said that there are several salient features to this new technology developed by the Council. Transitmycin is a microbial-derived natural product produced by novel Streptomyces species R2 isolated from Coral reef ecosystem off Rameswaram coast. It is showing activity against drug sensitive and drug resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis [MDR and XDR isolates] and different clades of HIV.

The structure of Transitmycin is found to be novel. The compound shows promising anti TB activity, effective against drug sensitive, Multiple Drug Resistant and Extensive Drug Resistant strains as well as dormant bacilli of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, HIV clades and other bacterial pathogens. It is also found to be active against non replicative tubercle bacilli. The process of production of compound is simple and economically viable. It is a low molecular weight compound with simple structure.

An Indian patent application and PCT application have been filed for this technology by the ICMR.

The ICMR had also recently developed a technology which is a diagnostic luciferase reporter phage assay kit for the detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis directly from processed sputum samples. The Council has already invited companies interested in commercializing diagnostic luciferase reporter phage assay kit for the detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis directly from processed sputum samples.