India grants emergency approval to first every COVID vaccine for above 12 ages, Zydus Cadila
Zydus Cadila's Covid vaccine ZyCoV-D is the first such product developed in India and the world's first one based on plasmid DNA.
Indian pharmaceutical company Zydus Cadila on Saturday indicated that it will launch its three-shot covid-19 vaccine ZyCov-D by September. The statement comes a day after the vaccine received emergency use authorisation (EUA) from the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI).
The Ahmedabad-based pharmaceuticals firm will start producing one crore doses per month of the ZyCov-D vaccine from October, Managing Director Sharvil Patel said in a press conference. “We hope to supply three to five crore doses by the end of January 2022.”
“Post the emergency use authorisation, now we will work closely with the regulatory authorities to work on the pricing and modality of delivery of the doses of our vaccine. In the next one or two weeks we will have better clarity on the pricing,” Patel said.
ZyCoV-D uses a section of genetic material from the Covid virus that gives instructions as either DNA or RNA to make the specific protein that the human immune system recognises and responds to, Reuters reported.
The company has said ZyCoV-D was effective against the new coronavirus mutants, especially the Delta variant. It plans to manufacture between 100 million and 120 million doses annually and has begun stockpiling them.
ZyCov-D vaccine, developed domestically by Zydus Cadila in partnership with the Department of Biotechnology, had shown an efficacy of 66.6%, according to the interim results from phase-3 clinical trials.
