Hyderabad firm comes up with India’s ‘first protein subunit vaccine’

AN INDIAN biotech company has rolled out the country’s “first indigenously developed protein subunit vaccine” against the coronavirus.

Biological E Ltd said it has developed the vaccine, Corbevax, in collaboration with Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development and Baylor College of Medicine (Baylor) of Houston.

It is a recombinant protein subunit vaccine, developed from a component of the spike protein on the virus’s surface. The Hyderabad-based company said it helps the body build the immune response against the virus.

India’s drug regulator last month approved Corbevax, which, the company claims, will be “effective both in scale and affordability”.

Biological E which has already begun manufacturing the vaccine said it expects the production to cross 100 million doses per month from February. It has promised to supply 300 million doses to the government.

The first private sector biological products company of India said it plans to deliver more than one billion additional doses globally “soon”.

The company worked to make quality vaccines and pharmaceutical products “accessible to families around the world”, according to its managing director Mahima Datla.

“We resolved to develop an affordable and effective Covid vaccine. It has now become a reality.”

Founded in 1953, Biological E also developed vaccines for tetanus, Japanese encephalitis and measles and rubella over the years.

It supplies vaccines to more than 100 countries and its therapeutic products are sold in India and the US.

The company says it has eight WHO-prequalified vaccines in its portfolio.