Bharat Biotech’s Chairman and Managing Director, Krishna Ells on Monday said that their covid vaccine candidate Covaxin's phase three trials have begun.
During virtually addressing a programme organised by the Indian School of Business, Ella said that they are also working on another vaccine for coronavirus. He further added that this vaccine would be a nasal drops formulation which will probably be ready by next year.
Ella said, "We partnered with ICMR for COVID-19 vaccine as we speak it entered the phase 3 trials.”
Further elaborating on their work, he said that Bharat Biotech is the only vaccine producing company in the world which has a BSL3 production facility (Biosafety level 3). Last month, the interim analysis of Phase one and two trials of the covid vaccine was successfully concluded, and presently the firm is beginning the Phase three trials which include 26,000 participants.
Covaxin is being produced by BharatBiotech, in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and National Institute of Virology (NIV).
On October 2, the Hyderabad-based drugmaker had asked the Drug Controller General of India's (DCGI) approval to conduct the phase 3 randomised double-blind placebo-controlled multicentre trial of its COVID-19 vaccine.
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Ella added, "We are working on another vaccine through nasal drops my feeling is by next year it will reach the population.”
Bharat Biotech in September had said that it came into a licensing contract with Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis for a novel "chimp-adenovirus" (Chimpanzee adenovirus), a single-dose intranasal vaccine for COVID-19.