‘Covaxin’ gives positive results in animal trials, declares Bharat Biotech

Bharat Biotech, the Indian company working on production of vaccine against Coronavirus announced on Friday that the animal trials for the vaccine ‘Covaxin’ have given positive results.

Their post on Twitter confirmed the news, “Bharat Biotech proudly announces the animal study results of COVAXIN – These results demonstrate the protective efficacy in a live viral challenge model.”

The Hyderabad based company has developed and assessed the protective efficacy and immunogenicity of an inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine (BBV152) or Covaxin in rhesus macaques, according to the information attached on tweet.

The tweet stated, “One group was administered a placebo while three groups were immunised with three different vaccine candidates at 0 and 14 days. All the macaques were challenged with SARS-CoV-2 14 days after the second dose. The protective response was observed with increasing SARS-CoV-2 specific IgG and neutralising antibody titres from third week post-immunisation.” 

Presently, ‘Covaxin’, is being evaluated in India for Phase 1 clinical trials. The Central Drugs Standard Control Organization have given approval to Bharat Biotech for conducting Phase II clinical trials. Covaxin was first announced by Bharat Biotech on June 29 with the joint collaboration of Indian Council of Medical Reserach (ICMR) and National Institute of Virology (NIV).