CONTEXT:
The Government of India has announced the stimulus package of Rs. 900 crore for the Mission COVID Suraksha, the Indian Covid-19 Vaccine Development Mission, which will help the development process of the vaccine candidates.
AIM:
- Accelerating pre-clinical and clinical development.
- Licensure of Covid-19 vaccine candidates that are currently in clinical stages or ready to enter the clinical stage of development.
- Establishing clinical trial sites.
- Strengthening the existing central laboratories and suitable facilities for animal studies, production facilities and other testing facilities to support the vaccine development.
- Supporting the development of common harmonized protocols, training, data management systems, regulatory submissions, internal and external quality management systems and accreditations.
- Supporting capabilities for process development, cell line development and manufacturing of GMP batches for animal toxicology studies and clinical trials.
- Developing suitable Target Product Profile so that vaccines being introduced through the mission have preferred characteristics applicable to India
MAIN POINTS:
- Mission COVID Suraksha is India’s targeted effort to enable the development of indigenous, affordable and accessible vaccines for the country and will complement the ongoing mission of Atmanirbhar Bharat.
- The Centre had announced this package during the third economic stimulus.
- The Mission with its end-to-end focus from preclinical development through clinical development and manufacturing and regulatory facilitation for deployment, would consolidate all available and funded resources towards accelerated product development.
- Phase-I of the Mission has been allotted Rs. 900 Crore for a period of 12 months.
- The grant will be provided to the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) for Research and Development (R&D) of Indian Covid-19 vaccines.
- It will be led by DBT and implemented by a dedicated Mission Implementation Unit at the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC).
- The existing activities under National Bio Pharma Mission (NBM) and Ind-CEPI Mission will provide complementary strengths to this Mission.
VACCINE CANDIDATES ARE IN HUMAN TRIALS:
- Covishield
- Covaxin
- ZyCoV-D
- Sputnik V
- BNT162b2
SOURCE: PIB