Covid-19 vaccine of biotech firm gets DBT funds

Mumbai: Epygen Biotech, a biopharmaceutical company, has received Rs 24 crore from the Department of Biotechnology to initiate Phase I and Phase II clinical trials of a Covid-19 vaccine.

Epygen aims to initially produce 100 million doses per year of the potential vaccine which could be used as the primary as well as booster against present and future SARS-CoV-2 variants, says a company statement.

The company plans to raise Rs 200 crore for mass production by year-end. The vaccine, an indigenous receptor binding domain (RBD based) will be made available to the government as well as private market. It is expected to hit the Indian market by year-end or early 2023, a company statement adds.

With an anticipated price point of less than Rs 150 per dose, the domestic company claims it will be able to adopt the highly productive C1-cell protein production platform, which has been demonstrated by scientists at the European Union Zoonotic Anticipation and Preparedness Initiative (ZAPI) program.

Epygen has licensed the C1-cell protein production platform from US firm, Dyadic International, to develop the hyper-productive C1 SARS-CoV-2 RBD cell line which was developed together with the Israeli Institute of Biological Research, an Israeli government biotech lab and VTT, a government-owned lab in Finland. Epygen is developing and expects to produce large quantities of the vaccine at a much lower cost at its Patalganga (near Mumbai) biologics facility.

The immunogenicity response has produced very high titers (level of antibodies) in preclinical trials and demonstrated excellent protection against lethal challenges of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The group has more than 20 years of experience with the C1 platform, churning out recombinant proteins at a much higher level compared to most current commercial vaccine cell lines. The company had initiated work on the vaccine about two years back.