THE INDIAN HAND

Whether India develops a Covid-19 vaccine/drug or not, Indian companies will be preferred partners for global pharma to make and distribute the life-saving drug globally

- P.B. JAYAKUMAR

10 Vaccines in human clinical trial stage

124 Projects globally in hunt of Covid-19 vaccine

20 Projects in India at pre-clinical stage

By Winter. This is the ambitious target set by scientists to defeat Covid-19.

Regulators, scientists and life sciences companies are working at break-neck speed in what has become the largest and fastest vaccine/drug hunt in human history.

Biotech specialists are using all available platforms or vehicles – dead, artificially engineered and live viruses, apart from DNA- or RNA-based ones – to transport virus-killing antigens into human cells. Big pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer, Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline are collaborating with each other. They have also opened their patented libraries of drug knowledge to researchers and academia. Governments and philanthropists are pumping in billions of dollars into promising projects. Scientists are attempting hundreds of treatment options from novel plasma and antigen injections to reusing old molecules right from Made in India anti-malarial hydroxychloroquine to HIV anti-virals to psoriasis or hepatitis drugs.

Normally, it takes four-six years to launch a vaccine right from developing a candidate and animal trials to three-stage human trials. The time to bring a drug to market is ten years. Scientists screen lakhs of chemical compounds, identify the candidate and develop it for two-three years before starting clinical trials. Only one or two out of ten candidates reach the human clinical trials stage.