(Image source from: pnas.org)
While the first pre-clinical trial for the Covid-19 vaccine has been injected into the first volunteers in the UK, scientists and researchers from across the world are still working on the process of vaccine development to enhance the success rate.
The US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo commented saying that India and US have been working together to develop vaccines to fight the coronavirus.
The comment didn’t come off as a surprise for the masses.
The primary reason behind the same was because India and US have been conducting international joint vaccine development programmed for over three decades now. Both the countries have worked on a number of vaccines including dengue, influenza, and even TB. The trials for the dengue vaccine are being talked about in the near future.
India is the largest manufacturer of generic drugs and vaccines and is known for developing and manufacturing a host of vaccines in the country including the ones against polio, meningitis, pnuemonia, BCG, measles, mumps and rubella, rotavirus etc.
With the Covid-19 outbreak, over half a dozen Indian firms are working on developing an effective vaccine for the virus.
One of the most notable of them all is the Serum Institute of India, which is the world’s largest vaccine manufacturers in terms of the number of doses produced and sold on a global scale. This company is over five decades old and is known for manufacturing over 1.5 billion doses of vaccine each year. It has its facilities situation in Pune and a few smaller ones in Netherlands and Czech Republic.
The company is known for supplying over 160 countries with 20 different types of vaccines. Over 80% of the doses that are exported are sold for 50 cents a dose, making it the cheapest vaccine in the world.
Now, the firm has been working in collaboration with Codagenix, which is an American biotech company. They are working on a “live attenuated” form of vaccine for Covid-19.
The vaccine is being developed by reducing the virulence of a pathogen but at the same time, keeping it alive.
The CEO of Serum Institute of India, Adar Poonawalla said that they are planning to start the vaccine trials with animal trials on mice and primate models in April itself. They believe that they would be able to start the clinical trial by September.
Serum Institute of India has also partnered with University of Oxford to enable mass production of the vaccine that they are now conducting clinical trials with. If the clinical trials with the vaccine goes well, the scientists are hoping to develop at least a million doses by September.
"It's pretty clear the world is going to need hundreds of millions of doses, ideally by the end of this year, to end this pandemic, to lead us out of lockdown," said Prof Adrian Hill from the Jenner Institute at Oxford.
This is the exact position where the Indian vaccine developers have an upper hand. They have the capacity for developing over 400-500 million doses of the vaccine as they have invested on the same.
Aside from Serum Institute of India, Bharat Biotech, which a firm based out of Hyderabad, India, has also announced their partnership with the University of Wisconsin Madison and US-based firm FluGen for the development of over 300 million doses of the vaccine.
Soumya Swaminanthan, who is the Chief Scientist of the World Health Organisation stated saying, “"The credit must go to entrepreneurs and pharmaceutical companies who invested in quality manufacturing and in processes that made it possible to produce in bulk. The owners of these companies have also had the goal of doing well for the world, while also running a successful business and this model is a win-win for all."
But, with all the progress that has been happening, the scientists and the researchers have alerted people to not expect the vaccine for Covid-19 to be available anytime soon.
By Somapika Dutta
