These three Indian companies are ready to produce Covid-19 vaccine

India is racing ahead with work on its coronavirus vaccine as countries around the world sought to conquer the pandemic and rescue their economies.

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Companies like Zydus Cadila, Serum Institute and Bharat Biotech are at the forefront of research on covid vaccines and are likely to be among the leading manufacturers as and when their commercial application is permitted.

Ahmedabad-based pharmaceutical major Zydus Cadila's COVID-19 candidate vaccine ZyCov-D is likely to enter Phase III final stage of clinical trials by December. If all goes well, the vaccine should be ready for launch by March, next year. Further, Zydus is working on a second vaccine for COVID-19 and its pre-clinical data will be ready by January.

Hyderabad based Bharat Biotech is also reached to the third phase of clinical trials for 'Covaxin', in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). Phase 3 trials of Covaxin will take place at 25 centres across India with a total of 26,000 participants. India's drug regulator, the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI), granted approval for the third phase after successful completion of the first two phases of trials. 

Serum Insitute of India, the world's largest maker of vaccines, has also said that it has already produced 40 million doses of AstraZeneca's potential COVID-19 vaccine.

The vaccine is named Covishield by the institute and is jointly developed by pharma giant AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford. It is originally named ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 and is one of the top contenders in the race to develop vaccines to treat Covid-19. 

Covishield has been developed at SII Pune laboratory with a master seed from Oxford University/AstraZeneca.

Serum refused to confirm whether the 40 million doses of vaccine will be supplied globally or only distributed in India, news agency Reuters reported. 

The vaccine maker also said doses of Novavax vaccine, another top candidate, will be produced soon, adding that the bulk of the drug has been received from the US Company. 

(With inputs from agencies)