Pharmaceutical company Zydus group on Wednesday announced that it had started the supply of its COVID-19 vaccine, ZyCoV-D, to the Central government against their order. The group is also planning to make the vaccine available in the private market.
ZyCoV-D, a three-dose vaccine administered intradermally, will be priced at ₹265 a dose and the applicator is being offered at ₹93 a dose, excluding GST. The Union Health Ministry had announced that ZyCoV-D will be initially introduced in Bihar, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. It explained that these States have been asked to identify the districts with high numbers of the first dose left out for introduction of the vaccine.
In a statement, the pharmaceutical group said that Zydus VTEC manufactured the drug substance for the needle-free DNA Plasmid ZyCoV-D. The manufacturing process and in-process material transfers within the plant were automated.
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Agreements
“Zydus has also entered into a definitive agreement with Shilpa Medicare Limited, a contract manufacturing organisation to produce mutually agreeable doses of ZyCoV-D. The company also entered into an agreement with Enzychem Lifesciences of the Republic of Korea for the manufacturing licence and technology transfer for the Plasmid DNA Vaccine,’’ it stated.
The company explained that ZyCoV-D was a Plasmid DNA vaccine which, when administered, produced the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and elicited an immune response mediated by the cellular and humoral arms of the human immune system, which played a vital role in protection from the disease as well as viral clearance.
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Zydus Cadila received the approval for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) for ZyCoV-D on August 20 last and the Central government had explained that the plug-and-play technology on which the plasmid DNA platform was based could be easily adapted to deal with mutations in the virus such as those already occurring.
“Interim results from Phase-III Clinical Trials, in over 28,000 volunteers, showed primary efficacy of 66.6 per cent for symptomatic RT-PCR positive cases. This has been the largest vaccine trial so far in India for COVID-19. This vaccine had already exhibited robust immunogenicity and tolerability and safety profile in the adaptive Phase I/II clinical trials carried out earlier. Both the Phase I/II and Phase III clinical trials have been monitored by an independent Data Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB),’’ the Centre had said.