Department of Biotechnology Secretary Dr Renu Swarup said on Monday that the Government of India (GOI) is working on vaccines with the modifications needed to combat all strains of COVID-19, Title Press reports.
The biotechnology department said a vaccine labeled “Pan-Corona” was in the works. Regarding the efforts of the biotechnology department to deal with COVID-19, she said, “We have been working with the scientific community to provide solutions to combat COVID and we have launched the COVID consortium."
Speaking to ANI in an exclusive interview, Dr Swarup said: “We are already preparing for the future, for a new vaccine, which is Pan-Corona. So if there is another such virus coming in or any variant coming in, the vaccine would be able to respond to all of them. So this is really our next preparation that we have already started. We have a very strong team working there. In fact, the DBT was the first department to have prepared a comprehensive roadmap and an R&D roadmap to protect itself from the COVID-19 pandemic. “At the WHO meeting in February 2020, our roadmap was presented, and we followed it into vaccines, therapies and diagnostics, creating an ecosystem,” she added.
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While explaining the financial support provided by the government in vaccine manufacturing and research, she added, “Today we have one of the strongest and most robust ecosystems in the country for biopharma. go well beyond COVID. If you look at the collected amount of financial aid we have given, it is anything from over 1,700 crore to 1,800 crore, it could reach around Rs 2,000 crore. This is clearly our preparation for the India to be a world leader in biopharmaceutical bioproduction for years to come. “
“We have a vaccine pipeline. India was one of the countries that from day one supported a basket of candidate vaccines. Due to our early investment in these candidate vaccines, you can see today that we are ready to deploy a number of these vaccines. vaccines, ”she added.
Regarding the messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine, she said that phase 2 and phase 3 trials of the mRNA vaccine will begin soon. “Of course we have the emergency use authorization that was given for the DNA vaccine. We have our own mRNA candidate that is likely to move into phase two, phase three at any time,” he said. -she informed.
When asked about ‘Biologic E’, Dr Renu Gupta said, ‘By the end of September or early October, Biologic E is expected to seek approval from drug regulators. We have the biological candidate E, which is again in phase three, and we hope that by the end of September or beginning of October, we will be ready to seek regulatory approval. The nasal vaccine, which again just received phase two, phase three approval from the regulator… is still one of them. “
Further, she said, “Such a rich pipeline if you look at the global vaccine pipeline. India is now a very important place. We have many other applicants who are in preclinical but are using this very ecosystem. robust that we have put in place, also gives us the confidence now that we have been able to know, as we work on phase two, phase three, we are all also testing each of these vaccines for variants. ”
On the effectiveness of vaccines against variants like Delta or Delta plus, she said, “We have good data to say that. What is its response to the Delta variants, we know what the response is.”