Panacea Biotech joins hands with US firm to develop Covid-19 vaccine
The world’s largest pharma companies are involved in making the Corona vaccine. Now Indian company Panacea Biotec has joined hands with American company Refana Inc to make Coronavirus Covid-19 vaccine. Panacea Biotech has given this information in the regulatory filling.
This partnership between the two companies has been aimed at creating an inactivated virus based vaccine. This Indian company, along with Refana, wants to make more than 50 crore doses of the potential vaccine for Covid-19, with a target of supplying more than 4 crore doses by next year.
In this regard, Panacea Biotech Managing Director Rajesh Jain said that the world needs a safe and effective vaccine that can be produced on a large scale in existing manufacturing facilities and meet the global demand.
As part of the partnership, Panacea Biotec will be responsible for product development and commercial manufacturing, while the joint venture entity will work on clinical development and regulatory submissions. A 50-50 stake in this vaccine has been fixed between the two companies.
Rajesh Jain told a channel that the animal trial of this vaccine has been done, which is safe and effective so far. He told that between August and September, applications will be made to the Drug Authority for human trials.
Panacea Biotech plans that Phase-I of Human Trial will be started in October. In addition, the company will start production of the vaccine as well. The target is to produce 40 million vaccine doses every month in December – 2020 and January – 2021. From storage to transportation of this vaccine will be very easy.
Rajesh Jain said that there is a plan to provide the vaccine at a lower cost, he said that after getting success, there are plans to use as well as export in India. He told that it is completely different from the vaccine produced by other companies, and its success is more likely.
As far as the cost of making this vaccine is concerned, the foreign company is funding it. He said that after getting a little more success, the company will contact the government regarding the vaccine. On Wednesday, after the news of the deal with the US company, Panacea Biotech’s shares hit the upper circuit with a 20 percent jump.
