Amid rising coronavirus COVID-19 cases in India and other parts of the world, two pharmaceutical companies made big announcement this recently. After Pfizer, US-based pharma giant Moderna announced on Monday that its candidate for Covid-19 vaccine is nearly 95% effective in preventing the deadly viral disease.
The company also said it will produce 20 million of vaccines doses by 2020-end. Earlier, Pfizer had announced that it is planning to produce around 50 million vaccine doses in 2020.
It is to be noted that both the vaccine developed by Pfizer and Moderna are two-dose regimen. According to Pfizer and Moderna, they will be able to vaccinate 25 million and 10 million people globally.
Pfizer is planning to expand its production and produce 1.3 billion units in 2021. Moderna is gearing up to increase production between 500 million and one billion.
Sources claimed that the Indian government is in touch with both domestic and international companies for purchase of Covid-19 vaccine. “Not only with Moderna, the government is also in communication with Pfizer, Serum Institute, Bharat Biotech and Zydus Cadila for their Covid-19 vaccine candidate in terms of safety, immunogenicity and efficacy,” news agency PTI reported quoting a senior government official.
Read: Moderna says its vaccine is 94.5% effective in preventing COVID-19
Meanwhile, Bharat Biotech on Monday announced the commencement of phase III trials of the COVID-19 vaccine, Covaxin. It is the largest clinical trial conducted for a COVID-19 vaccine in India.
The phase III trials will involve 26,000 volunteers across 25 centres in India, being conducted in partnership with ICMR. This is India’s first phase 3 efficacy study for a COVID-19 vaccine, and the largest phase III efficacy trial ever conducted in India. The trial has been registered with ICMR and approved by the Drugs Controller General of India.
