There are no approved vaccines for the new coronavirus, have been rushing to develop a viable vaccine candidate. But, leading vaccine maker Bharat Biotech on Monday announced that it has successfully developed Covaxin, India's first vaccine candidate for Covid-19, in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and National Institute of Virology (NIV) and will begin its human trials next month.
The SARS-CoV-2 strain was isolated in NIV, Pune and transferred to Bharat Biotech. The indigenous, inactivated vaccine was developed and manufactured in Bharat Biotech's BSL-3 (Bio-Safety Level 3) High Containment facility located in Genome Valley, Hyderabad, the company said in a statement.
Meanwhile, here are some potential coronavirus vaccines which are being developed across the world:
Oxford/AstraZeneca: ChAdOx1-nCov19/AZD122: According to sciencemag.org, this is one of the front-running candidates in human trials (the WHO agrees), and it’s recently started dosing in South Africa and Brazil as well as the ongoing trials in the UK, etc.
CanSino/AMMS: China's military has received approval for using a Covid-19 vaccine jointly developed by its research unit and CanSino Biologics Inc. The approval for the Recombinant Novel Coronavirus Vaccine (Ad5-nCoV) was granted by HealthBureau of the Logistics Support Department of China's Central Military Commission on June 25, for one year, CanSino Biologics said on Monday. The phase-1 and phase-2 clinical trials of the Ad5-nCoV were conducted in China.
Reithera: This Rome-based company is claiming to have developed the vaccine candidate, based on a simian adenoviral vector, which has shown strong immunological potency and low-existing immunity in humans. These vaccines have evaluated in Phase 1 and Phase 2 clinical trails and proved to be safe.
Moderna: mRNA1273: Moderna Inc has said that it was partnering with contract drugmaker Catalent Inc to prepare an initial 100 million doses of its coronavirus vaccine for the United States, starting in the third quarter of this year. They’re still heading for Phase III in July, and have signed up with Catalent (who are also working with J&J) for support in vaccine production, labeling, and distribution for that effort.
Pfizer/BioNTech: Meanwhile, BNTECH has joined hands with Pfizer for developing a COVID-19 vaccine. Their vaccine candidate is based on messenger RNA technology, similar to Moderna. Tests for the same are being conducted on volunteers in Germany and the US.
