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IIT Guwahati Colaborates With Hester Biosciences To Develop COVID-19 Vaccine

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IIT Guwahati is collaborating with Hester Biosciences Limited, a pharmaceutical company based in Ahmedabad, Gujarat to develop a vaccine for COVID-19.

The agreement between the two parties was signed on April 15, 2020.

The vaccine will be based on recombinant avian paramyxovirus based vector platform.

The recombinant avian paramyxovirus-1 will be used to express the immunogenic protein of SARS-CoV-2, which could then be used as a vaccine candidate for further study.

The avian paramyxovirus-1 has been explored as a vaccine vector for various animals and human pathogens.

The research team of IIT Guwahati is headed by Dr. Sachin Kumar, Associate Professor, Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering.

Speaking about the vaccine for COVID-19, Dr. Sachin Kumar said, “It is too early to comment on the efficacy and immunogenicity of the vaccine, however, we will be able to reveal more details about this vaccine after the results of animal studies are obtained.”

Speaking about the collaboration, Rajiv Gandhi, CEO and MD of Hester Biosciences Limited said, “In the current pandemic situation of COVID-19, the world is looking at developing preventive and curative measures to safeguard mankind. IIT-G and Hester have collaborated to develop and manufacture a recombinant vaccine against COVID-19 disease as a preventive measure. Hester’s involvement would be from master seed development up to release of the commercial vaccine”.

“Hester has 23 years of experience in vaccine manufacturing on the veterinary side. It manufactures vaccines by using fermentation, tissue culture, continuous cell line and chick embryo origin methods. Hester is also currently working towards developing next generation recombinant poultry vaccines. Being in veterinary vaccine manufacturing, as well as working towards developing recombinant vaccines, Hester has a fairly good understanding and the capability to get into human vaccines, specifically into a vaccine against the COVID-19 disease,” he added.

It is to be mentioned that the work is currently in its early stage of development. IIT Guwahati and Hester Biosciences Limited expect the vaccine to be ready by December this year to start animal studies.
(Inputs: India Today)