India to soon have monkeypox vaccine

A monkeypox vaccine may soon be available from India, as six companies have been identified by The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and given the go-ahead to make the vaccine, reports The Pharma Letter’s local correspondent.

Though several companies are in the fray and expressed interest to develop the vaccine, the Serum Institute of India, Biological E, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories (BSE: 500124), Hester Bioscience, Indian Immunologicals and Reliance Life Sciences have been selected by the ICMR to make monkeypox vaccines.

The ICMR had earlier stated that it gained possession of the isolates of the monkeypox virus and is willing to collaborate with pharmaceutical companies to develop vaccines and detection kits.

Subsequently, the ICMR floated an expression of interest for the development of the vaccine and diagnostics kits and got 31 bids from manufacturers interested in developing the vaccine and detection kits for the monkeypox virus. Two government-owned companies, Haffkine Institute and Indian Immunologicals, are also working on the vaccine.

"The drug companies would be granted rights to undertake further R&D, manufacture, sell and commercialize the end product, vaccine candidate against the monkeypox disease under the defined agreement," an ICMR official said.

Several other companies like Genes2Me, Mylab, and NeoDx have also expressed interest in manufacturing kits for detecting monkeypox.

Last month exports of the vaccine were put on hold. Serum Institute of India, one of the first organizations to express interest in bringing the monkeypox vaccine into India, put it on the back burner given the few cases in the country.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has said that monkeypox, the zoonotic viral disease, which has been reported in over 100 countries, including India, is still a global health emergency of concern.

The ICMR official added that many years of research led to the development of second and third-generation vaccines for smallpox, some of which may be useful for monkeypox. He added that one has been approved for prevention of monkeypox and the vaccine is based on a strain of vaccinia virus, known generically as modified vaccinia Ankara Bavarian Nordic strain, or MVA-BN. This vaccine has been approved for the prevention of monkeypox in Canada and the USA, added the official.