India's first coronavirus vaccine gets nod for human trials

Bharat Biotech's Covid-19 vaccine has been approved for human trials, making it India's first domestic candidate to get the green light from the government's drug regulator. Bharat Biotech's COVID-19 vaccine has been approved for human trials, making it India's first domestic candidate to get the green light from the government's drug regulator as cases surge in a country with more than 1.3 billion people. The Drug Controller General of India has approved the company's application to conduct a Phase I and II clinical trial of Covaxin, which was developed along with the Indian Council of Medical Research's National Institute of Virology, the company said in a statement on Monday. “COVAXIN is India’s first indigenous vaccine against Covid-19. The collaboration with ICMR and NIV was instrumental in the development of this vaccine. The proactive support and guidance from CDSCO has enabled approvals to this project. Our R&D and Manufacturing teams worked tirelessly to deploy our proprietary technologies towards this platform," said Dr Krishna Ella, Chairman and Managing Director of Bharat Biotech.