Zydus Cadila today announced that the company has applied for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to the office of Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) for ZyCoV-D – its Plasmid DNA vaccine against COVID-19.
Zydus Cadila said the world’s first Plasmid DNA vaccine for COVID-19 demonstrated safety and efficacy in the interim data of the largest vaccine trial so far in India for COVID-19.
“The primary efficacy of the three doses vaccine was at 66.6 percent for symptomatic RT-PCR positive cases in the interim analysis,” the company said.
“Whereas no moderate case of COVID-19 disease was observed in the vaccine arm post administration of the third dose suggesting 100 percent efficacy for moderate disease,” it added.
Zydus said it has found no severe cases or deaths due to COVID-19 occurred in the vaccine arm after administration of the second dose of the vaccine.
If approved, ZyCoV-D will be the world’s first DNA vaccine, Zydus said, as it makes use of a portion of the genetic code – DNA or RNA – in the SARS-CoV-2 virus to stimulate an immune response against its spike protein.
“We expect to produce 1 crore vaccine doses per month from August onwards and 5 crore doses by December this year. Our target is to produce 10 crore vaccine doses in a year,” Sharvil Patel said on its Covid vaccine candidate ‘ZyCoV-D’ production.
