Zydus Cadila's Covid-19 vaccine to be ready by March 2021: Report

Earlier this month, Zydus Cadila received the approval from the DCGI to start phase 3 clinical trials for its Covid-19 vaccine

As novel coronavirus continues to claim lives, all eyes are now on the rollout of a Covid-19 vaccine. Even as the Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech failed to receive an emergency use authorisation (EAU) licence for their Covid-19 vaccines from the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) on Wednesday, many are hopeful that vaccine rollout might bring the nation a step closer to returning to normal.

Zydus Cadila has estimated that its vaccine candidate will be ready by March 2021, according to a report by The Times of India.

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"Our vaccine candidate, ZyCoV-D has completed phase-2 clinical trials. Depending on the outcome and approvals from regulators, we hope to be ready with the vaccine by March 2021. Another vaccine candidate developed by our research team in Italy, which is a measles vector-based candidate, is currently in pre-clinical studies at our Vaccine Technology Centre in
Ahmedabad," Zydus Cadila Chairman Pankaj R Patel told the publication.

Earlier this month, Zydus Cadila received approval from the DCGI to start phase 3 clinical trials with its biological therapy PegiHep in Covid-19 patients. The company had completed phase 2 clinical trials with PegiHep last month.

The trials, which will commence in December, will be conducted on 250 patients across 20-25 centres in India, according to the filing.

Sharvil Patel, Managing Director of Cadila Healthcare Ltd, said, "we are encouraged by the results of phase 2 study of Pegylated Interferon alpha 2-b which has shown the potential to reduce virus titres when given earlier in the disease.