Status of COVID-19 vaccine in India
India will begin clinical trials of its Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine on 6000 high-risk individuals. It will be done to understand its safety and efficacy in boosting immunity in the fight against COVID-19 disease and whether or not the BCG shots can reduce the severity of this highly infectious disease.
The Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine is used against tuberculosis to boost the immunity of the individual.
Bharat Biotech International Ltd (BBIL) has teamed up with the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) to develop a COVID-19 vaccine. One of the world’s largest vaccine maker of the world by volume, Pune’s Serum Institute of India is working with the University of Oxford to make millions of potential coronavirus vaccine doses. The Indian government has also allocated Rs 100 crore from the PM-CARES fund to support the initiative of producing a COVID vaccine.
Moderna vaccine
The US-based Moderna Therapeutics said that it had received approval from the FDA (US Food and Drug Administration) to conduct the phase 2 clinical trials of its potential COVID-19 vaccine candidate. It is important to note that Moderna has already conducted phase 1 trials of its vaccine candidate mRNA-1273 in Seattle, Washington.
Novavax vaccine
One of the top candidates of the potential COVID-19 vaccine, Novavax Inc recently received funding of 388 million dollars from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation. According to Dr Gregory Glenn, president of research and development for Novavax, the vaccine candidate NVX-CoV2373 has shown promising results.
INOVIO Pharmaceuticals
INOVIO Pharmaceuticals is developing a DNA-based vaccine candidate in its San Diego lab. The biotechnology company also received a 6.9 million dollars funding from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). The Plymouth Meeting-based biopharmaceutical company completed phase 1 of clinical study on 40 healthy volunteers.
Pfizer and BNTECH vaccine
US drugmaker Pfizer has teamed up with a German company BNTECH to develop a vaccine for COVID-19. Both the companies are working together on four RNA vaccine candidates. Their vaccine candidate ‘BNT162’ is based on messenger RNA (mRNA) technology and the company has already begun clinical trials in Germany.
Johnson & Johnson vaccine
Another major player in the development of potential vaccine, Johnson & Johnson is currently working on an adenovirus-based vaccine and plans to initiate a Phase 1 clinical study in September 2020. The company also claims to ramp up its manufacturing capacity to produce around 1 billion doses of its potential vaccine by the end of 2021.
CanSino Biologics
Chinese vaccine maker CanSino Biologics Inc is developing a potential vaccine for COVID-19 and has been listed by WHO as one of the top contenders. The company is currently working on Adenovirus Type 5 Vector using a Non-Replicating Viral Vector platform to develop its vaccine.
Sinovac Biotech
Beijing-based Sinovac Biotech is working on China’s one of the most promising vaccine candidate for COVID-19 disease. It has already commenced phase 1 trial and the first dosing of the vaccine for the volunteers has been completed.
University of Oxford
A potential coronavirus vaccine is being developed by the University of Oxford and it has partnered up with UK-based AstraZeneca for the same. The vaccine ‘ChAdOx1 nCoV-19’ was developed under three months by the University’s Jenner Institute. To make the vaccine work, the scientists used a weakened strain of common cold virus (adenovirus) that causes infections in chimpanzees.
Sanofi vaccine
French pharmaceutical group Sanofi had initiated stated that the US will be given first access to the COVID-19 vaccine whenever it develops as “the US government invested in taking the risk.” US agency Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority was the first in line to fund the Sanofi’s vaccine research. However, after a backlash from the French government, the French pharmaceutical company released a statement on Thursday that the vaccine will be available for all the nations.
British American Tobacco (BAT)
London based cigarette company British American Tobacco has also developed a vaccine using protein from tobacco leaves and is ready for a human trial. The company said that its experimental vaccine has shown a positive immune response in pre-clinical trial and now they are waiting for approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) after which it would proceed to phase 1 trial on humans.
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