The spokesperson of the Vice-Presidency for science and technology affairs announced that promising results have been obtained in testing drugs for corona disease by Iranian companies.

According to the public relations and information center of the Vice-Presidency for science and technology affairs, Parviz Karami, the spokesperson of the Vice-Presidency for science and technology affairs, talked about the achievements of knowledge-based companies in fight with coronavirus in a recent interview with Jam-e Jam Newspaper, expressing: the Vice-Presidency was one of the first units that called for participating in the fight against COVID-19.

During the interview, Karami appreciated the efforts of the medical staff at the frontier of the battle against corona and explained about the activities of the Vice-Presidency in this regard: during the first days of the disease outbreak, the Vice-Presidency established a committee of strategic technologies headquarters related to the fight against the disease headed by Sorena Sattari, the vice president for science and technology affairs, in cooperation with Iran National Innovation Fund so that the innovation and technology ecosystem could take the necessary measures to cooperate with the frontline defenders of the medical and health struggle. In this regard, he continued: at its meetings, the activities needed to be met were divided into two immediate and long-term categories, and the follow-up to each of these measures began. Immediate action was taken to identify medical, technological and equipment deficiencies and act quickly to remedy them.

To this end, a call was made by the corona fight committee to receive help from knowledge-based companies and startups in various fields and support them in this field. According to the call, the Vice-Presidency and Iran National Innovation Fund cooperate in supporting knowledge-based companies to meet the country’s needs in the fight against coronavirus.

Producing corona detection kits, production of nano masks, disinfectants, effective drugs in the treatment and control of disease complications, monitoring software systems, modeling and soft simulation Software and other products and services that in any way help fight the virus have been the focus of this call.

Using Domestic Ability to Produce Detection Kits

Producing efficient detection kits for this virus is one of the most important missions of the ministry of health announced to the companies producing detection kits. Given the fact that producing detection kits for this virus requires specific equipment, the food and drug organization has announced a call in cooperation with the biotechnology development headquarter to use the capacities of domestic companies in this regard. For this project, the necessary support will be provided to companies for producing products quicker and with a higher quality.

Mostafa Ghanei, the secretary of the biotechnology development headquarter and a member of the judgement committee of projects, explained about company selection in an interview with Jam-e Jam newspaper, asserting: after assessment of 50 applicants by the food and drug organization, five companies were selected after confirming their ability to produce detection kits. Last week, they concluded a contract with the Vice-Presidency.

It is expected to produce the kits in one month. However, as mentioned by the spokesperson of the Vice-Presidency, this period can be reduced to less than one month considering the advancements made in some of these companies. Soon, with the introduction of Iranian-made kits, we will have enough kits not to worry about a lack of diagnostic kits. The corona fight committee considered providing more details about the top companies to depend on the time they can successfully complete their business in a timely manner.

Efforts of Nano Technologies in Support of Care Staff

Another part of the support of the Vice-Presidency was allocated to nano field, and the nanotechnology development headquarter has the mission to recognize and provide the necessary support in the area to use the capacity of the field to produce nano respiratory masks and efficient disinfectants.

Regarding the measures taken to increase the capacity of nano-mask production in the country, Karami affirmed: producing N95 and N99 nan-masks depends on the organizations that have advanced and costly technologies. In our early days, we found that one of the companies that manufactured these devices manufactured two nano-masks and was ready to export.

However, we immediately prevented the two devices from exporting them into domestic mask factories by compensating the manufacturer for losses. On the other hand, by identifying and equipping existing masks companies, even simple breathing masks that were sometimes limited, we quickly increased our capacity to produce masks domestically. Today, we are witnessing the production of 300,000 nano masks daily for medical staff and patients from nanoscience-based knowledge companies, and we are working to increase that number further.

An Example of Successful Efforts

Fanavaran Nano-Meghyas Co. is a knowledge-based company that was previously working on producing fast diagnostic kits such as pregnancy or addiction tests and now is working on nano respiratory masks.