Merck gives Rs 1.7 crore fund to IIT Bombay for COVID research

Mumbai: Merck, a science and technology company, today announced a donation of INR 1.7 crore over two years to the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay to support the development of clinical tests for Covid-19 disease severity assessment.

The funded project is an ongoing Covid-19 multi-omics research on the development of simple immunoassays based on Single Molecule Counting technology to identify low levels of early disease severity markers.

"India has been hit by a huge second coronavirus wave with a record of over 32 million cases to-date, and daily active cases in tens of thousands," said Sunil Punjabi, Managing Director of Life Science Business, Merck India. "With this donation, Merck is aiding IIT in the early identification of Covid-19 virus severity to facilitate appropriate healthcare management which will help to relieve the pressure that has been put on the healthcare system in the country."

"The research aims to dissect the host response signatures during Covid-19 disease progression, identify clinically relevant biomarkers, apply mass spectrometry based approaches, and translate the findings to allow the prognosis of Covid-19 patients," the release said.