THSTI, Panacea Biotec to jointly develop betacoronavirus vaccines

NEW DELHI: Delhi based drug firm Panacea Biotec and government's Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (THSTI) - which has been at the forefront of Covid vaccine research - have begun work on developing a coronavirus vaccine that are expected to offer ‘broad protection’ against not only the Sars-CoV-2 virus, but also Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS).

Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) will provide funding of up to $12.5million to support the development of the “multi-epitope, nanoparticle-based” vaccine candidates and advance the manufacturing process.

The idea is to develop a pre-emptive vaccine for future coronavirus outbreaks. If things go according to plan the new vaccine is expected to be available in the next two tothree years, officials said.

THSTI and Panacea Biotec will design and select the lead antigen through proof-of-concept preclinical studies, and undertake initial clinical development through Phase 1/2 studies as they seek to establish clinical proof of concept for novel vaccine candidates to provide broad protection against MERS, SARS-CoV, SARS-CoV-2 and its variants.

“We are honoured to collaborate with CEPI and THSTI for development of a betacoronavirus vaccine that can provide broad protection against SARS-COV-2 and other coronaviruses,” Rajesh Jain, Managing Director of Panacea Biotec, said.

Richard Hatchett, CEO of CEPI, noted that over the past two years coronaviruses have demonstrated their pandemic potential with devastating effect.

“It's therefore vital for global health security that we invest now in research to develop vaccines that are broadly protective against variants of SARS-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses before they emerge,” Hatchett said.

Pramod Kumar Garg, Executive Director of the Translational Health Science and Technology Institute, said he looked forward to a fruitful academia-industry collaboration with Panacea Biotec in bringing out a vaccine product for global public health.

“We are hopeful that this collaboration will further enhance our capabilities to develop a robust platform and pipeline for development of products against other infectious diseases,” Garg said.