COVID-19: Human trials starts for ZyCoV-D vaccine in India

In a desperate bid to contain the highly infectious virus which is spreading at an alarming rate, medical researchers and scientists are breaking their heads to develop a cure. Being one of the largest vaccine manufacturers in the world, India has already started its expedition in developing two indigenous vaccines COVAXIN and ZyCoV-D. Good news is that both the vaccines are all set for human trials.

BIRAC, on July 15, has announced that ZyCoV-D, the plasma DNA vaccine designed and developed by drug pharma Zydus and partially funded by the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India (DBT) has initiated Phase I/II clinical trials in healthy subjects.

The adaptive phase I/II will assess the safety, tolerability and immunogenicity of the vaccine. Zydus will be enrolling over 1000 subjects across multiple clinical study sites in the country. The Department of Biotechnology Government of India has partnered with Zydus to address rapid development of indigenous vaccines for COVID-19 under the National Biopharma Mission. According to Dr Renu Swarup, Secretary DBT and Chairperson BIRAC said that this will be an important milestone for Atma Nirbhar Bharat .

In the pre-clinical phase the vaccines proved showing positive outcomes where it was found to be safe,immunogenic and well tolerated.

Earlier this month, Zydus had received approval from domestic authorities to start human trials for its COVID-19 vaccine contender – the second Indian pharmaceutical firm to get such a nod amid a surge in novel coronavirus infections worldwide.

It got approval a few days after India’s first indigenous COVID-19 vaccine candidate COVAXIN, developed by city-based Bharat Biotech in collaboration with Indian Council of Medical Research and National Institute of Virology, got the nod for human clinical trials from the Drug Controller General of India.