Hyderabad-based Biological E Limited gears up to launch ‘Corbevax’ soon

The city has continued to retain its status as the vaccine capital of the country with yet another top-pharmaceutical company Biological E Limited preparing the ground for the launch of its Covid vaccine ‘Corbevax’ in the next few weeks. The Corbevax has successfully completed its second and third phase of clinical trials and the results are expected to be put before the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) for emergency use authorisation by the end of November or the initial weeks of December. Senior clinicians familiar with the development of the vaccine, which comes in two doses, said that Corbevax already had underwent second and third phases of clinical trials at 15 different hospitals in the country including the Asian Institute of Gastroenterology (AIG), Gachibowli. The Corbevax phase two and three clinical studies were designed on 1,268 individuals aged between 18 and 80 with moderate to high-risk comorbidities. The second phase covered 100 individuals aged between 18 and 55 while the just-concluded third phase covered 1,168 persons aged between 18 and 80.
Corbevax has been developed in collaboration with Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas and Dynavax, California. In fact, last Wednesday, vaccine scientist and Professor, Paediatrics and Molecular Virology and Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Dr Peter J Hotez referred to the promise of Corbevax. “We need to vaccinate the world and that’s what we are focusing day and night here at our centre for vaccine development in Baylor College of Medicine. We believe we have the solution or at least part of it,” Dr Hotez, tweeted, referring to the link related to Corbevax.
The Hyderabad pharma giant is targeting to supply at least 10 crore doses of Corbevax within days of its launch in India. In fact, the Central Government had already invested nearly Rs 1,500 crore so that Corbevax vaccines can be stockpiled and rolled out at one go across the country. Reports have indicated that to ensure there is no shortage of supply problems over the availability, the pharma company has already started manufacturing the vaccines. As part of expanding its ability to produce such large doses of Covid vaccines, in October, the Biological E Limited had entered into an MoU with the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) to expand its Shamirpet facility with an investment of $50 million. The pharma giant is also conducting vaccine trials on children, which are expected to be completed by the end of December or January.

Source: telanganatoday