An Indian company has achieved a milestone to test coronavirus vaccine on animals.?
Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII) said it expects to be ready with a vaccine against the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) by early 2022.
SII announced that a vaccine candidate for the novel coronavirus, which has killed more than 2,000 people in China since its outbreak in December-end, is expected to progress to the human trial phase within the next six months.
"The vaccine candidate, developed by SII in partnership with American biotechnology firm Codagenix, has progressed to the pre-clinical test phase (the animal trial phase) and we hope to be ready with the vaccine by early 2022," SII CEO Adar Poonawalla said in a statement.
"The combined efforts with the team at Codagenix have borne fruit and we hope to save millions of lives with this vaccine," he said.
The novel coronavirus, with its epicentre in China's Wuhan, has killed thousands of people across the world and affected lives of over 80,000 people globally.?
While several efforts have been made to find a cure as well as in controlling the outbreak, this is the first vaccine-virus strain to progress to the pre-clinical trial phase," the company said.
The vaccine-virus strain is identical to the original virus and can generate a robust immune response, Poonawalla said.
The vaccine-virus strain will be the fastest such Made in India vaccine to progress to the human trials phase within six months, he said.
The cost of the project is up to Rs 300 crore, for which SII aims to secure external funding via various global partners, he said.