India's First Covid-19 Vaccine Developed By Bharat Biotech To Enter Human Trials From July

In a major positive development, Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech India Ltd's COVID-19 vaccine called 'Covaxin' has become the nation's first vaccine candidate to receive Drug Controller General of India (DCGI)'s nod to enter human trials, reports Livemint.

The DGCI has given the approval to Bharat Biotech to conduct phase-I and phase-II clinical trials of the vaccine which has been developed by the company in collaboration with Indian Council of Medical Research's (ICMR) Pune-based National Institute of Virology (NIV).

It should also be noted that the company is simultaneously also engaged in the development of another vaccine called 'Coroflu' which is being developed in a collaboration with the University of Wisconsin-Madison and vaccine maker FluGen.

Meanwhile, there are other vaccine candidates as well which are being developed in India by companies like Zydus Cadila, Serum Institute of India and Panacea Biotec. However, all of these candidates are presently in pre-clinical stage.