India: the search for a Covid-19 vaccine
India has become the second most affected country in the world with over 1.12 million cases registered till now.
By Moumita Layek and Deepankar Mukherjee
With the Covid-19 pandemic showing no signs of slowing down, India has become the second most affected country in the world with over 1.12 million cases registered till now.
A lot of companies and independent medical groups are involved in the development of a COVID-19 vaccine. The month of June has seen a lot of developments and announcements taking place regarding the production of a vaccine made in India. Globally, India is renowned to be a leading vaccine producer and has manufactured several vaccines in the past, which experts believe gives India an edge over its competitors. 30 different Indian companies are trying to produce a vaccine to fight the infection. Out of these, seven vaccine candidates have got approvals by WHO . They are in different stages of testing and clinical studies now.
COVAXIN is developed by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech International Limited (BBIL) in collaboration with ICMR and NIV, Pune was the first vaccine to get regulatory approvals for clinical trials. The vaccine makes use of an inactive version of a virus to spike up production of antibodies in the host body and just recently initiated phase I and II of testing. According to a report by Times of India, over 385 people have been recruited so far and top hospitals across the country have been selected for conducting the trials. While ICMR declared August 15 as the ambitious launch date of the vaccine, there is a lot more research needed in the testing phase.
Also, Indian Immunologicals Limited (IIL) is overseeing the development of a vaccine in partnership with Griffith University, Australia. The vaccine model, though still in its nascent stage, makes use of an innovative codon-deoptimization technology which directly targets the cells infected by SARS-COV-2. Pre-clinical trials and studies are still going on for the same.
Meanwhile, Mynvax is a Bengaluru-based medical pharmaceutical startup working on a COVID vaccine which uses a very different approach involving a protein-based vaccine. The same has been done in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Science (Bengaluru). While scientists are still conducting preclinical trials, the company has applied for a Rs 15 crore grant for further research from the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) as per a report by TOI.
Also, Zydus Cadila, a Ahmedabad-based pharma giant, announced the start of phase I of its testing process of its Covid-19 vaccine earmarked ZyCOV-D last week. Extensive research for the same was done in coordination with medical laboratories in the USA and Europe for the same. Reports say that the company is testing two versions of its vaccine, one which makes use of molecular DNA to elicit an immune response, while the other uses a live measles viral strain to provide protection.
Meanwhile, Panacea Biotec Limited has also initiated its vaccine creation process. Panacea Biotec Limited is a Delhi-based biotechnology company which has signed a partnership with a US-based pharma company, Refana Inc, to develop and manufacture and distribute an experimental COVID-19 vaccine which is currently in works. An agreement has also been signed up with a firm in Ireland regarding the same. The vaccine prototype will make use of an inactivated virus strain and has shown effective results in the pre-clinical trials conducted in the US. Toxicology studies and animal trials will be conducted in labs across Delhi and Punjab, following which, the company aims to proceed to human trials in the month of October.
Along with it, Hyderabad-based Biological E is working on developing a novel COVID-19 preventing vaccine which is still in its preclinical level. Further updates regarding the same are still awaited.
Today, there were updates on the Covishield vaccine developed at the Oxford University which will be in India by November and will ultimately cost Rs 1,000,as stated by NDTVciting the statement by the Indian firm partnering the UK researchers. The manufacturing of the Covishield vaccine had started parallelly with the clinical trials, the first phase of which got positive results. The report also cited a statement by Adar Poonawala, the chief of the Serum Institute of India stating that the decision to push in 200 million dollars into an untested drug took exactly 30 minutes. The risks were compounded by the fact that if the clinical trials in the remaining phases do not get good results, the entire stock has to be destroyed.
