EMERGING OPTIONS
The World Health Organization (WHO) data on ‘Landscape of candidate vaccines in clinical development’ says that 91 Covid vaccines are in clinical phase of development. While 11 of these vaccines have already reached the market, at least 17 new ones are in final stage of trials globally, including three from India.
If the Johnson and Johnson, Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines in the market are already pre-booked by developed nations and are unavailable for import, there are other options. The major US-European vaccines in final clinical trial stages include German biopharmaceutical company CureVac’s mRNA-based vaccine candidate CVnCov, US biotech firm Inovio’s DNA vaccine, a protein subunit vaccine from Sanofi-Pasteur and GSK, and a similar vaccine from the Clover Biopharma-GSKDynavax combine. Besides this, a consortium of three biotech companies in Europe—ReiThera, Leukocare and Univercells—have a vaccine with a de-activated virus, Canadian biotech firm Medicago Inc has a virus-like particle-derived vaccine and Ireland-based Vaxxinity has a protein subunit platform vaccine, all nearing final stages of trials.
Other nations are also close to launching their own vaccines. In Japan, an Osaka University, Takara Bio and AnGes alliance is developing a DNA vaccine. Cuba has two vaccines in Phase III stage—a protein subunit vaccine from Instituto Finlay de Vacunas and a CIGB-66 (RBD+aluminium hydroxide) vaccine being developed by its Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB). Iran’s Shifapharmed Industrial Company has an inactivated virus vaccine in final Phase 2/3 stage. The EpiVacCorona vaccine by Russia’s Vector Institute and QazCOVID-in by Kazakhstan’s Research Institute for Biological Safety Problems are also in final Phase III trials. Australia has a protein subunit vaccine in final stages, developed by pharma giant CSL with Seqirus and the University of Queensland. The last option for India are Chinese vaccines—at least five of them are already in the market—from Sinopharm (2 vaccines), Sinovac, Cansino and Anhui Zhifei.