Zydus on Wednesday said that it has started human studies for its potential coronavirus vaccine. ZyCoV-D, its plasmid DNA vaccine, was found to be safe, immunogenic and well-tolerated in the pre-clinical toxicity studies, Zydus said in an exchange filing. In the human trials, Zydus will enroll over 1,000 subjects across multiple clinical study sites in the country.
Zydus had earlier this month received a nod from the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) to conduct phase 1 and 2 human clinical trials of the company's plasmid DNA vaccine candidate for coronavirus.
"This is an all important step in our fight against COVID-19. We acknowledge the support of National Biopharma Mission, BIRAC, Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of India and regulatory agencies ICMR and DGCI in the development of ZyCoV-D vaccine candidate. We look forward to the Adaptive Phase I/IIclinical studies and gathering important data on ZyCoV-D in the months ahead," said Pankaj R Patel, Chairman, Zydus Cadila
Meanwhile, India has seen a spike of 29,429 coronavirus cases and 582 deaths in the last 24 hours, ministry of health data show. With this, the total positive cases stand at 9,36,181, including 3,19,840 active cases, 5,92,032 recoveries and 24,309 deaths. Though cases continue to rise in India, the recovery rate among patients has increased to 63.20 per cent. The recoveries or death ratio stands at 96.05:3.95. This is the fifth consecutive day that COVID-19 cases in the country have increased by more than 26,000.
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