By Kefiloe Kajane
Cabinet this week resolved to set up a ministerial sub-committee that has been tasked with monitoring the progress on the potential Covid-19 drug established by five National University of Lesotho (NUL) scientists.
The sub-committee will be made up of the minister of forestry land conservation, minister of tourism, environment and culture and also minister of health and will be led by the minister communications, science and technology.
Approached for comment on cabinet’s decision, the leading scientist on the project Dr Lerato Seleteng-Kose declined to comment, citing the fact that the inventors are embroiled in a patent battle.
This after recent media reports suggested the group was fighting over potential earnings if the drug is approved. Central to the dispute is how much each of the academics contributed to the research and how their contribution translates into shareholding in the company under which the project was started.
The multi-million drug project invented by the National University of Lesotho (NUL) to deal with Covid-19 pandemic had been on hold for close to a year due to lack of funding.
The project was being undertaken by the country’s only university with the aim of dealing with the rampaging Covid-19 that has killed millions of patients globally.
It was invented by the school’s Innovation Hub last year and was in the process of undergoing further tests to establish its efficacy in a fight against the scourge.
It was estimated that about M7-million is needed to bring the project into fruition but the institution is in financial disarray that the scientific exercises have completely come to a hold.
In July 2020, the potential drug compounds were tested for safety assessment at the department of Pharmacy at NUL and the results came out non-toxic. The results revealed that the potential drug compound, from NUL, passed the test and was effective against the Coronavirus.
Dr Seleteng-Kose said in January this year they were approached by the department of Science and Innovation from South Africa asking for a collaboration on the project.
She indicated that in order to complete the project an amount of M7million was needed. She said South Africa’s Science and Innovation department was willing to share the costs as it expressed intention to pay half of the costs. The rest would be borne by NUL.
But it has since hit a snag as the tertiary’s coffers are almost empty and cannot fully fund the invention.
“So now basically the project is still in the same state in which it was left. We do not have capacity to fund it further. South Africans told us that they are moving on to their other projects since we could not raise money. We do want to continue with the project but our only problem is funding for clinical and pre-clinical tests,” she regretted.
Explaining the results of the Covid-19 possible drug, a report by South Africa’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Array Tech Research Group published in November 2020 said the group received two plant extracts from NUL for activity testing against the virus.
The samples, according to the report were tested using the neutralization assay against the severe and acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) as well as against the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV). It stated that in addition they were assayed for toxicity to human cells.
A summary of the report said in all cases the extracts almost did not show signs of toxicity to the targeted cells. But, it expected that the TI would be high for both extracts.
It explained that the extracts received from the university of Lesotho were active against the two coronaviruses tested and did not show toxicity in vitro.
The group recommended that the extracts be tested in animals before any human clinical trials.
The head of NUL’s Faculty of Science and Technology, Professor Thamae Leboli, last year said the critical strategic move of producing the drug was aimed at elevating NUL from the traditional university 3.0 status (that undertakes typical teaching, research and community service) to a more advanced and entrepreneurial university 5.0 status (that still engages in teaching, research and community service, but goes further into innovation and commercialization).
He indicated that of much interest was that since the outbreak of the Coronavirus or Covid-19 pandemic, a team of scientists boasting a wealth of combined skills and experience, have been actively working together at the NUL Innovation Hub towards developing herbal mixtures as potential drugs for virus treatment that has so far proved to be a success.
The drug compound, he said, is a mixture of herbal plants found in Lesotho which were first tested in July and declared non-toxic.
Dr Seleteng-Kose, then said the drug would first be tested on rats before clinical trials are conducted on humans. She said thereafter would be tested on human volunteers, specifically people who would have tested positive at the time.
She had then warned that it could take longer to get to the final end product because there was still much to be done. She urged for patience among the Basotho who are in a hurry to find a cure.
