The Institute of life Sciences, Bhubaneswar on Tuesday transferred a technology for production of curcumin sponge for wound healing.
During last few years, the ILS has been working on developing a product and demonstrated the efficacy of curcumin encapsulated in chitosan and alginate polymers for cure of various inflammatory and oxidative stress-related diseases, including wound healing.
Wound healing is a complex physiological response to injury. In severe pathologic conditions, this cascade healing process is lost and the wounds are locked into a state of chronic inflammation. Wound treatment and its therapeutic impediments represent an economically-challenging burden on healthcare worldwide.
Some studies in India suggest that around 4.5 per thousand people are affected by chronic wounds and this almost doubles to 10.5 for acute wounds. Plant-based products have multi-targeting potential and in addition are inexpensive and safe compared to synthetic agents. Turmeric is an important cash crop grown by tribal farmers of India, particularly Odisha.
The ILS had already entered into an MoA (memorandum of association) with the NRDC (an enterprise of DSIR, Ministry of Science and Technology) in 2015 for commercialisation of this product. Based on extensive discussions, the NRDC has identified Golap Pharmaceuticals, Jaipur, for mass-scale production and commercialisation of curcumin sponge. The technology has been developed by ILS scientist Dr Sanjeeb Sahoo and his group.
The product was launched on Tuesday in the presence Dr Manju Sharma, former Secretary, Dept of Biotechnolgy, and Dr Ajay Parida, Director, ILS.