Union health and science minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Tuesday inaugurated one of the seven labs of the global network created by Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) for comparably assessing efficacy of all coronavirus (Covid-19) vaccines. The laboratory at the Translational Health Science & Technology Institute (THSTI)-Faridabad is the only one in India as of now.
The other laboratories include Nexelis (Canada) and Public Health England (UK), VisMederi Srl (Italy), Viroclinics-DDL (The Netherlands), the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease research (Bangladesh), Q2 Solutions (USA), and National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC, UK).
CEPI has approved costs of up to US $16million for this network. All Covid-19 vaccine developers can use this network for free to assess immunogenicity of their vaccine candidate against a common protocol, using clinical samples from preclinical, phase-I through phase-III trials.
The network will use the same reagents and follow common protocols to measure the immune response generated by multiple vaccine candidates, including the ones that are not being funded by CEPI. It is an innovative partnership between public, private, philanthropic, and civil organizations to develop vaccines to stop future epidemics. According to the organisation, the network will ensure uniformity in assessment across candidates, helping in identifying the most promising one.
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There were 60 vaccines in clinical trial and 172 in pre-clinical trials as of December 2020, according to the World Health Organisation. At least seven vaccines have been approved for use by countries across the world.
At the virtual inauguration of the lab, the minister lauded the work of the department of biotechnology and Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) for “working relentlessly over the past ten months to develop effective interventions for combating the Covid pandemic. The CEPI laboratory will be a great addition to the ability of THSTI to enhance quality of services towards making the vaccine and its acceptability at global level.”
He added, “Today, the country is at the forefront of developing vaccines against Covid-19. Already two of the 30 vaccines have been cleared by the drug controller.”
Harsh Vardhan also announced the successful manufacturing of 10 million diagnostic kits by AMTZ, Visakhapatnam, which was one of the projects selected for funding under the Covid-19 consortium set up by the department of biotechnology.
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