India’s drug regulator today approved Zydus Cadila’s three-dose COVID-19 DNA vaccine for emergency use in adults and children aged 12 and up, making it the country’s sixth vaccine approved for use.
The company stated that it intends to produce 100 million to 120 million doses of ZyCoV-D per year and has begun stockpiling the vaccine.
Cadila Healthcare Ltd, the generic drugmaker, applied for ZyCoV-D approval on July 1 based on an efficacy rate of 66.6 percent in a late-stage trial of over 28,000 volunteers nationwide.
ZyCoV-D is the world’s first coronavirus plasmid DNA vaccine. It employs a section of the virus’s genetic material, which contains instructions in the form of either DNA or RNA, to produce the specific protein that the immune system recognises and responds to.
Zydus Cadila’s vaccine, developed in collaboration with the Department of Biotechnology, is the second home-grown vaccine to receive emergency approval in India, following Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin.
The drugmaker announced in July that its COVID-19 vaccine was effective against the new coronavirus mutants, particularly the Delta variant, and that the shot is administered with a needle-free applicator rather than traditional syringes.
