Centre plans second-generation COVID vaccines to tackle mutating variants 

(Representational image)

The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) has initiated work on developing an improved and adapted COVID vaccine to counter the threat of new, mutated variants of the coronavirus in India.

According to an official, five pharmaceutical companies have joined hands with educational institutes to develop the second generation of COVID vaccines in India to counter the threat of any new variant of concern in the future. The official did not want to be named.

The official however, did not name the institutes and pharma companies in talks with the government for development of the second-generation vaccine.

The research and development will focus on creating a “bivalent vaccine”, which provides an immune response against two antigens through a single inoculation.

The official also said that the government aims to develop a vaccine candidate that has the potential to neutralise both the original Wuhan variant, and the Omicron variant, which has mutated significantly.

“The vaccines and boosters currently being administered target the original variant, that’s why immune escaping variants are causing breakthrough infections. Hopefully, this can be tackled by second-generation vaccines in future,” he added.

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Strain-specific vaccines

Leading vaccine manufacturers Serum Institute of India (SII), Bharat Biotech International Limited (BBIL) and Biological E (BE) are already working on strain-specific COVID vaccines.

Dr. Vikram Paradkar, executive vice president, manufacturing & technical operations, Biological E, said that the company is actively developing the next generation of the Corbevax vaccine, specifically against the coronavirus variants.

“The efforts are focused on evaluation of the variant-specific Receptor Binding Domain (RBD) protein as the antigen either used in a monovalent format, or in combination with additional RBD proteins that target other variants as per the evolving situation,” Dr Paradkar told Moneycontrol.

According to Biological E, the pharma company has already tested multiple RBD antigens in animal models to assess their vaccine effectiveness potential.

“However clinical evaluation hasn’t been initiated due to the very short circulation period of prior Variants of Concern (VoC). To address this issue, antigen constructs that can generate immune responses against a wide panel of VoCs are also being designed and developed," Dr Paradkar added.

Meanwhile, according to Prakash Kumar Singh, director (government and regulatory affairs) at the Serum Institute, the company is already working with Novavax on an omicron variant-specific vaccine for COVID.

Company sources have indicated that they have approval from the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation to manufacture trial batches of Omicron variant-specific vaccines for testing purposes.

Similarly, Bharat Biotech is involved in a project that seeks to develop a ‘variant-proof’ COVID vaccine candidate. The company is part of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) with the University of Sydney (Australia), and ExcellGene SA, Switzerland.

"Product development activities are in process for variant-Indiaspecific COVID vaccines. The studies are in progress and data will be available in the months to come," a Bharat Biotech official said.

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Experts flag long road, viability issues

Immunologists are not quite convinced with the Centre's plan for a second-generation COVID vaccine.

Eminent virologist Dr T Jacob John said that creating a platform for development of any vaccine is a good idea but also argued that new vaccines may not be needed as COVID has become endemic.

“A vaccine for the delta variant will be of no use today, and similar will be the fate of the second-generation if we develop a vaccine now for the coronavirus. All vaccines provide protection against Omicron with an additional dose, therefore people may not take more jabs in future,” he added.

Dr Rakesh Mishra, Director of the Tata Institute for Genetics & Society, advocated for a COVID vaccine that acts on every variant but said developing it may take a long time.

“Theoretically, an agnostic vaccine against all the variants seems to be a possibility, and companies in the US are working on it. We need a vaccine that can attack any new COVID variant but it may take another two years,” the former CSIR-CCMB director said.