Vaccine for COVID-19 will be available by 2021. Image Courtesy – https://investinholland.com
Serum Institute of India (SII) is ramping up its aspiration for a new vaccine for coronavirus. The Pune-based institute claimed to have achieved progress in developing a vaccine for this frightening virus; they also assured that their developed vaccine has already reached to clinical trial stage on animals and results will come within 2 months.
The SII entered into a partnership in the previous month with the US biotech drug research company Codagenix to jointly prepare a vaccine to combat the COVID-19 virus. They gave an indication that their vaccine would be marketised by 2021.
The estimated cost of the project is Rs 300 crore, but Serum Institute of India has targeted to obtain external funding through other global partners. This project will be controlled with ‘Bio Safety Level 3’ conditions – a highly restricted level. Very few facilities like ‘Serum Institute of India’ have a huge amount of production controlled by ‘Bio Safety Level 3’ conditions. The total responsibility is on Codagenix to marketise the vaccine once it is ready.
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The total number of victims due to COVID-19 virus till date is like below:
Infected – 5,65,044 Deaths – 25,410 Recovered – 129,309
More than nine medicine manufacturers are working relentlessly to develop a vaccine to combat COVID-19 virus. They are Johnson & Johnson (USA), GlaxoSmithKline (UK), Moderna (USA), Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (USA), Sanofi Pharmaceutical company (France), Inovio Pharmaceuticals (USA), Gilead Sciences (USA), Takeda Pharmaceutical Company (Japan) and VIR Biotechnology (USA). The US Department of Health and Human Services is working as a partner with Johnson & Johnson and Sanofi Pasteur to boost up the development of vaccine and treatment to combat COVID-19.
Adar Poonawalla, the Chief Executive Officer of Serum Institute in India, told The Economic Times in an interview that they were in the pre-clinical stage or precisely the animal trial stage. The Serum Institute and Codagenix have been working together consistently and persistently to develop this.
Poonawala also said that Serum Institute has decided to make human trials of their vaccine-virus strain, which is identical to the original virus and can produce a strong immune response, in India, following the ethics and safety standards. If their mission is successful, this animal trial will be the shortest time for a vaccine to proceed to the human trial stage within six months. In his words, if everything goes properly, their main challenge will be to produce it in huge volumes.
