India’s Bharat Biotech is in talks with more than 10 countries that have shown interest in a possible Covid-19 vaccine it is developing with a government agency, a company executive told Reuters on Friday.
The Hyderabad-based company this week received initial approval from Indian authorities to conduct late-stage trials for its candidate vaccine, COVAXIN.
The potential vaccine was found to be safe without any major adverse events in the first two stages of the trials involving about 1,000 people, Chief Executive Officer Sai Prasad said in a telephone interview, adding that more than 90% of them developed antibodies. against the new coronavirus. .
Attention is now focused on late-stage trials of the vaccine, developed in collaboration with the Indian Council for Medical Research, as well as finding foreign partners, he said.
“We are in active discussions with more than 10 countries that have shown interest in COVAXIN,” he said.
“We are talking with some countries about partnerships to conduct clinical trials and introduce the vaccine, and in some countries we are in talks to manufacture the vaccine locally.”
He declined to name the countries, but said they were located in South America, Asia and Central Asia and Eastern Europe.
For the third-stage trials in India, Bharat Biotech plans to enroll between 25,000 and 26,000 participants in around 12 to 14 states, he added.
Zydus Cadila from India is currently conducting mid-stage trials of its own vaccine hope, while the Serum Institute is manufacturing potential vaccines from AstraZeneca, Novavax and Codagenix Inc, as well as developing its own.
India has the second highest number of reported coronavirus cases in the world at 7.8 million, more than 100,000 of whom have died.
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