Coming soon! Manufacturers work on CoroFlu vaccine to beat pandemic

The vaccine named CoroFlu is expected to reach the stage of human trials by the end of this year, according to a media release issued by Bharat Biotech on Friday.
Image used for representation
Image used for representation

HYDERABAD:  Hyderabad-based vaccine manufacturer Bharat Biotech, in collaboration with virologists from University of Wisconsin-Madison in USA and another vaccine company, FluGen, in the process of developing and testing a vaccine against COVID-19. 

The vaccine named CoroFlu is expected to reach the stage of human trials by the end of this year, according to a media release issued by Bharat Biotech on Friday. The CoroFlu vaccine will be delivered intranasally, to mimic natural route of infection by Coronavirus and influenza, which will activate several modes of the immune system. 

COVID-19 LIVE | All 650 cases in last two days linked to Tablighi Jamaat; India tally stands at 2547

Head of Business Development at Bharat Biotech, Dr Raches Ella, said: “Bharat Biotech will manufacture the vaccine, conduct clinical trials, and prepare to produce almost 300 million doses of vaccine for global distribution. Under the collaboration agreement, FluGen will transfer its existing manufacturing processes to Bharat Biotech to enable the company to scale up production and produce the vaccine for clinical trials.” 

Refinement of the vaccine concept and testing in animal models will be conducted at the university in USA, which is expected to take three to six months. Following this, Bharat Biotech in Hyderabad will begin production scale-up for safety and efficacy testing in humans. Once the vaccine gets all the required clearances, Bharat Biotech can produce almost 300 million doses per year for global distribution. CoroFlu will be based on M2SR, a vaccine candidate developed by FluGen’s co-founders and UW-Madison virologists, Yoshihiro Kawaoka and Gabriele Neumann. 

Vaccine triggers full immune response 

“We are going to modify M2SR by adding part of the coding region for the Coronavirus spike protein that the virus uses to latch onto cells and begin infection,” said Neumann. The M2SR is a unique form of the flu virus. It lacks a gene called M2, which restricts the virus to a single round of replication in cells, thus tricking the body into thinking that it is infected. 

This, thereby, triggers a full immune response. “CoroFlu will also express the influenza virus hemagglutinin protein, which is the major influenza virus antigen. So, we should get immune responses to both Coronavirus and influenza,” Neumann added.

Related Stories

No stories found.
The New Indian Express
www.newindianexpress.com