Bharat Biotech partners with Cepi to develop ‘anti-variant’ Covid-19 vaccine

This Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) announced the ninth CEPI-funded program to advance the development of vaccines that provide broad protection against SARS-CoV-2 variants and other beta coronaviruses.

BBIL ​​has successfully commercialized a universal vaccine for COVID-19 for adults and children. While the current generation of vaccines is safe and effective against currently known variants, it is imperative that we focus on devising multi-epitope vaccines, where a single vaccine can protect against all future variants. Dr Krishna Ella, Chairman and CEO of Bharat Biotech, said our expertise in product development and innovation, particularly with new adjuvants and platform technologies, will add to the strong partnership with CEPI, Excelgene, and the University of Sydney.

CEPI said: “In this new vaccine design, 3D-modified Spike immunity will be produced in a robust and scalable process with high purity and low cost yield, based on a biofabrication approach that has delivered large amounts of therapeutic proteins to the world in one attempt.

The protocol will also be used for the rapid development strategy of large-scale preventive vaccines against other beta coronaviruses, as well as vaccines against Disease X, and unknown pathogens that may emerge in the future.

The international multidisciplinary consortium will consist of Bharat Biotech International Ltd, University of Sydney, Australia, and Exelgene S.A., Switzerland.