India continues to mull over SII and Bharat Biotech's COVID-19 vaccine candidates

The analysis of the additional data and information submitted by Serum Institute of India (SII) and Bharat Biotech is still being conducted by regulator Central Drug Standard Control Organisation's (CDSCO) Subject Expert Committee and their next meeting will be held on January 1.

The Subject Expert Committee met on Wednesday to consider the Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA) request of Pfizer, SII and Bharat Biotech Private Ltd.

Further time was requested on behalf of Pfizer, while the additional data and information presented by the SII and Bharat Biotech was perused and analysed by the SEC.

"The analysis of the additional data and information is going on. SEC will convene again on 1st January 2021 (Friday)," the Centre said in a statement.

America's Pfizer was the first one to apply for the accelarated approval on December 4, followed by the SII and Bharat Biotech who applied on December 6 and 7, respectively.

On December 9, the Subject Expert Committee had asked the SII and Bharat Biotech to submit more data and information to get approval.

The expert panel had then recommended the SII to submit outcome of the assessment of UK regulatoe for grant of emergency use approval, the updated safety data of the Phase 2/3 clinical trial and immunogenicity data from the clinical trials in UK and India.

Bharat Biotech was recommended to present the safety and efficacy data from the ongoing Phase 3 clinical trial in the country for further consideration.

Their applications were reviewed again earlier on Wednesday, hours after the UK accepted the recommendation of the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to authorise Oxford University-AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine, named Covishield, for emergency use.

The authorization was significant for India as the Pune-based SII had tied up with the company to conduct clinical trials and manufacture the vaccine. Besides, Bharat Biotech is developing country's indigenous coronavirus vaccine - Covaxin - in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research.

The Central government plans to vaccinate nearly 30 crore people in the first phase of drive. It will be offered to one crore healthcare workers, along with 2 crore frontline and essential workers and 27 crore elderly, mostly above the age of 50 years with co-morbidities.

Covishield uses a replication-deficient chimpanzee viral vector based on a weakened version of a common cold virus that causes infections in chimpanzees and contains the genetic material of the SARS-CoV-2 virus spike protein.

After vaccination, the surface spike protein is produced, priming the immune system to attack the coronavirus if it later infects the body.

The vaccine can be stored, transported and handled at normal refrigerated conditions at two to eight degrees Celsius for at least six months and administered within existing healthcare settings.

Its interim analysis for efficacy showed that the vaccine was 70.4 per cent effective at preventing symptomatic COVID-19 occurring more than 14 days after receiving two doses of the vaccine.

The SII has already made 40 to 50 million doses of the shot. "We have 40-50 million doses of Covishield stockpiled. We will be producing around 300 million doses by July 2021," its CEO Adar Poonawalla had recently said.

Besides this, Bharat Biotech's Covaxin is India's indigenous vaccine and is being developed in collaboration with the ICMR's National Institute of Virology.

The indigenous, inactivated vaccine is developed and manufactured in Bharat Biotech's BSL-3 (Bio-Safety Level 3) high containment facility

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