When the world is under attack of global pandemic of COVID-19, many pharmaceutical companies are stepped up for faster vaccine development. And during same time, Indian Pharmaceutical giant, Zydus Cadila accelerates COVID-19 vaccine research at their research centre. The Zydus vaccine research team is working on an accelerated vaccine research programme which can fight against COVID19.
Zydus is adopting a two-pronged approach for vaccine development which includes a DNA based vaccine and a live attenuated recombinant measles virus vectored vaccine to combat the virus.
DNA vaccines are third generation vaccines. They contain DNA that codes for specific proteins (antigens) from a pathogen. The DNA is injected into the body and taken up by cells, whose normal metabolic processes synthesize proteins based on the genetic code in the plasmid that they have taken up.
And Live recombinant vaccines are made of a live viral or bacterial vector that is engineered to express a variety of exogenous antigens in the cytoplasm. Live attenuated measles virus vaccines have an impressive record of safety, efficacy and ability to induce life-long immunity against measles infection. Using reverse genetics technology, such negative-strand RNA viruses can now be rescued from cloned DNA.
Along with vaccine development Zydus cadila is also involved in supply of hydroxychloroquine to the country. Hydroxychloroquine have known for its effect on corona virus.
Dr. Sharvil Patel, managing director, Zydus cadila said that, "we are ramping up the production of Hydroxychloroquine to meet requirements. Our concern is to make the drug available to patients who require it. We are trying our best to ensure that there are sufficient quantities of the drug. The priority of hour is to make sure that we produce this versus anything else."
He also added that, "not only are we working to make sure we are able to produce Hydroxychloroquine in treatment of Coronavirus in large quantities, but we are also working on vaccine development, which would be the ideal long term solution for the Coronavirus".
