New Delhi: The Serum Institute of India has joined hands together with New York-based Codagenix Inc for developing of a vaccine against the deadliest coronavirus.
According to a press statement, the aim of the majors is to rapidly co-develop a live-attenuated vaccine (LAV) against the emergent coronavirus.
LAVs are derived from disease-causing pathogens (virus or bacteria) that have been weakened under laboratory conditions. They usually grow in a vaccinated individual but, because they are weak, so they cause no or very mild disease. These vaccines stimulate an immune response that is nearly as strong as that triggered by an infection with the wild-type pathogen.
Indian and US pharma’s first collaboration will help firms to develop a vaccine for coromavirus which was declared a pandemic last month by the World Health Organization and has killed thousands of people among the globe and also forced different countries to implement the lockdown.
Adar Poonwalla, CEO of Pune-based Serum Institute of India said “We hope that we can establish a platform dealing with new infectious diseases and outbreaks beginning with the coronavirus pandemic.”
J. Robert Coleman, CEO of Codagenix, LAVs are “ideally suited to outbreak scenarios as they scale rapidly and generally require only modest amounts of active ingredient for each immunisation, as compared to inactivated and subunit vaccines”.
