BENGALURU: In just four weeks, more than a 1,000 technological innovation proposals have reached the CCAMP Covid-19 Innovations Deployment Accelerator (C-CIDA) in Bengaluru, which has, this week picked six new innovations for scaling up. All these proposals have come from startups spread across India.C-CIDA, in its fourth week has selected six companies — Eyestem for a novel screening platform for anti-Covid-19 drugs; Kerasiev, a technology to control viral contaminants in wastewater; Innaumation for therapeutics approaches; Pluss Technologies for cold chain support for viral swabs; RR Animal Healthcare for surface sanitisation and DNAXperts for an indigenously developed rapid diagnostics kit — with solutions that are making headway in addressing Covid-19.While a few of these companies are ready to deploy immediately, some will be in the game longer with platform technologies in areas that hold immense potential for impact in India and globally.Taslimarif Saiyed, CEO and director, C-CAMP, said “In fact, C-CIDA Week 4 line up reflects the diversity of solutions being put forth by the Indian startup community. These are not mainstream but bold, holistic approaches. The scale is not just India but the world.”C-CAMP, which along with the United Nations Health Innovation Exchange (UNHIE) and Social Alpha started C-CIDA in late March, is set to handpick a select few of these innovations for grant funding and investment opportunities easing their path to eventual adoption by the public healthcare system.The call has earlier selected 25 top innovations in its first three weeks. With this batch of six the number climbs to 31, and many more are expected to be announced in the coming weeks.Of these, Eyestem Research, a C-CAMP incubated Bengaluru startup in the regenerative therapy space. They have developed human lung progenitor cells as a novel drug screening platform for Covid-19.“The platform technology if successful can potentially transform how drugs are being screened in COVID-19 experiments the world over,” C-CAMP said.Kerasiev, a Kolkata-based startup that has developed a ceramic membrane-based bio hazardous wastewater filtration plant that can be used to reduce the viral load in wastewater generated at Covid-19 quarantine centres and hospital wards.CCAMP said that the ceramic based membrane has a shelf life of 10 years and is also compatible with the assembly structure of current sewage treatment plants for easy integration. The technology is a first-of-its-kind in India and can be an exciting control method to prevent COVID-19 contaminated effluents from percolating into the larger ecosystem.Innaumation another Bengaluru-based startup is developing India’s first convalescent plasma therapy to go into Phase I clinical trials. Plasma therapy is an experimental procedure that is currently being tested in various countries and has been permitted for use in clinical trials in various Indian states by ICMR. An immunotherapy drug for treating severely-ill COVID-19 patients is also in Innaumations ’ pipeline.Pluss Technologies is a Gurugram-based startup with a temperature controlled packaging product called Celsure. Celsure uses a novel phase change material to maintain temperatures between two to eight degrees Celcius for up to 120 hours. This can be a game changer in current cold chain support systems for biologicals including viral swabs.Hyderabad-based RR Animal Healthcare Ltd’s surface disinfectant for poultry farms, RH+ is a broad spectrum antimicrobial effective against all coated viruses and bacteria. Enhanced with potent sterilising components, the product can be an ideal surface sanitising solution in multiple settings including infection hotspots, hospitals etc.DNA Xperts, a Noida-based startup’s Covido is an indigenously developed fast, real-time PCR kit for Cov-2 RNA detection. It takes less than an hour to test. “As per ICMR guidelines, testing will form the core of India’s response in the coming days of the pandemic. Locally made and locally sourced testing kits like Covido will strengthen India’s testing capacity and help in controlling the scale of transmission,” CCAMP said.