The country's first indigenous Covid-19 vaccine COVAXIN, developed by city-based Bharat Biotech in collaboration with ICMR and NIV

Hyderabad: The country's first indigenous Covid-19 vaccine COVAXIN, developed by city-based Bharat Biotech in collaboration with ICMR and NIV, has got the nod for human clinical trials from the Drug Controller General of India, the company said.

The Phase I and Phase II clinical trials of the vaccine for SARS-CoV-2, approved after pre-clinical studies demonstrated safety and immune response, would start across the country next month.

CoronavirusThe collaboration with Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the National Institute of Virology (NIV) was instrumental in the development of the vaccine, the company said in a release.

The indigenous and inactivated vaccine has been developed at Bharat Biotechs BSL-3 (Bio-Safety Level 3) high containment facility located in the Genome Valley here, a release said.

The Drug Controller General of India CDSCO (The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation), Ministry of Health & Family Welfare granted permission to initiate Phase I & II Human clinical trials after the company submitted results generated from pre-clinical studies, demonstrating safety and immune response.

Human clinical trials are scheduled to start across India in July 2020, the release said.

CoronavirusChairman and Managing Director of the company Dr. Krishna Ella said, “We are proud to announce COVAXIN, Indias first indigenous vaccine against COVID-19. The collaboration with ICMR and NIV was instrumental in the development of this vaccine.

Our R&D and Manufacturing teams worked tirelessly to deploy our proprietary technologies towards this platform, he said.”

Besides Bharat Biotech, at least five other Indian companies are working on a vaccine for the deadly coronavirus while similar efforts are underway in different countries.