Indian drugmakers push on with development of Zika and Chikungunya vaccines

Even as French pharma giant Sanofi (Euronext: SAN) has stalled development work on a Zika virus vaccine candidate, India is pushing ahead with two vaccine candidates against the virus that continues to cause havoc across the world, and could cause Alzheimer's style symptoms in adults, reports The Pharma Letter’s India correspondent.

Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech (BSE: 524663) has two Zika vaccine candidates in development: one is a recombinant vaccine and another inactivated vaccine.The biotech company has developed an inactivated virus vaccine with the African MR 766 strain. Preliminary studies have shown 100% efficacy against mortality and disease in animals.

The Indian bio-therapeutic manufacturer began work on the Zika virus in 2015. It had to import samples of the virus in order to conduct experiments, as they were none on Indian soil at that time. This essentially placed India nearly 18 months ahead of the rest of the world, with the development of a Zika vaccine.