Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold a meeting with three lesser-known companies developing Covid-19 vaccines on Monday, two days after his tour to major facilities taking stock of their ongoing processes and roll-out methods. Here’s what we know about these firms and their vaccine candidates:
Gennova Biopharmaceuticals, Developing India’s First mRNA Vaccine
This Pune-based company is yet to start human trials for what could be India’s first mRNA vaccine. RNA vaccines operate by adding an mRNA sequence (the molecule that tells cells what to build) coded for a particular disease antigen, unlike a regular vaccine. Once generated within the body, the antigen is recognised by the immune system, preparing it to battle the real thing.
The regulators have been approached, and the company is hopeful the trials will start in December. The vaccine candidate is being developed in partnership with HDT Biotech Corporation in Seattle and the project has been funded by the Department of Biotechnology, under the Ministry of Science.
While mRNA technology requires extremely low temperatures, the company says they are working towards a vaccine that would be stored at the standard temperature of 2 to 8 degree Celsius.
Dr Reddy’s Labs, Conducting Trials for Russia’s Sputnik V Vaccine
This vaccine candidate is all set to move to the stage of Phase-II and III trials in India. Russia has claimed the vaccine developed by the country has an efficacy rate more than 90%. The trials are part of a deal between the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF). The Sputnik V vaccine has been developed by the Gamaleya National Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology.
India-based drugmaker Hetero is set to produce over a 100 million doses of the current candidate. “Hetero, one of India’s leading generic pharmaceutical companies, have agreed to produce in India over 100 million doses per year of the world’s first registered vaccine against the novel coronavirus infection, Sputnik V,” the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) earlier said in a statement.
The production was expected to start in early 2021. This vaccine is from the human adenoviral vector platform. Through this method, engineered viruses, called adenoviral vectors, are designed to pass into our bodies a gene from SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19, where our cells read it and generate spike proteins from the coronavirus.
Biological E’s Vaccine, Developed by US Baylor College of Medicine
The company is based out of Hyderabad. The Phase-I and II trials for the vaccine candidate are currently ongoing in India. Their vaccine includes an antigen in-licensed from Baylor College’s integrated commercialization team, and an advanced adjuvant CpG 1018, which is supplied by Dynavax, a biopharmaceutical company that develops, and commercializes novel vaccines. Adjuvants are a pharmacological or immunological substance which in a vaccine, is combined with a specific protein (antigen) to help stimulate an its immune response.
Read all the Latest News, Breaking News and Coronavirus News here
Comments
0 comment