NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India’s Gennova Biopharmaceuticals is working on an Omicron-specific COVID-19 vaccine candidate that could be ready in a month or two, a person with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
The source, who did not want to be named as the information was private, said the product might need a small trial in India before it could be rolled out as a booster or standalone vaccine.
A representative for Gennova, a unit of drugmaker Emcure Pharmaceuticals that does business in some 70 countries, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Pfizer Inc said last week https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/pfizer-ceo-says-omicron-variant-targeted-vaccine-is-most-likely-outcome-2022-01-10 a redesigned COVID-19 vaccine that specifically targets the Omicron coronavirus variant could be ready to launch by March.
The source said Gennova on Friday separately submitted to India’s drug regulator phase 2 trial data for its original mRNA vaccine candidate. The government said https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1748520 last year that product was found to be “safe, tolerable, and immunogenic” in the participants of an initial study.
If given emergency-use approval, this would be the country’s first mRNA COVID-19 vaccine like the ones developed by Pfizer and Moderna.
(Reporting by Krishna N. Das; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell)
