Zydus Cadila targets 1 cr doses of ZyCovD by Oct; check out efficacy, price & details here

Zydus Cadila received Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) by the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) for its COVID vaccine ZyCoV-D on Friday. The approval of the vaccine assumes significance since it is the world’s and India’s first indigenously developed DNA-based vaccine for humans including children and adults 12 years and above. Addressing a press briefing on Saturday, Dr Sharvil Patel, Managing Director Zydus Group detailed the roll-out plan of the vaccine, its price, efficacy and how many doses would be available in the coming months.

Zydus Cadila targets 1 cr doses by Oct

ZYCOV-D is a three-dose vaccine given on day zero, day 28th and then on the 56th day. Discussing the commercial roll-out plan, Dr Patel revealed that the company was targeting 30-45 lakh doses within the next 45 days, and at least 1 crore doses by October. "The next 45 days we are targetting 30-45 lakh doses. From October we will scale up to 1 crore and then by end of December 3-4 crore. We had faced a delay of 45 days for the commissioning of our plant but we are hopeful that we will reach 5 crore doses by January," he said.

On the manufacturing front, he revealed that the company had an expression of interest from 2-3 manufacturers in India. "We have a request for transferring of technology. We are now focused on scaling up manufacturing. That is our challenge," he said.

ZyCovD price

Talking about the price of ZyCovD, Dr Patel noted that the company still had to work with the authorities to discuss the pricing and modality of the doses. "Pricing depends on a delivery device, and doses government wants to commit to. There is a current benchmark (of the price of COVID vaccines). There would not be a huge difference as compared to that," he said. 

Talking about the distribution of the vaccines, he said that the Government already had a 75-25 % acquisition system in place. "We know that a large quantity will be reserved for the government since they are driving the vaccination roll-out. The mixing percentage is difficult to say. But we will make also make efforts to make it available to institutions schools, colleges based on the vaccination plan," he said.

"It is early to say but we have to make sure we don't waste doses or time since children need to be back to school. Our focus is to make maximum doses available. If adults also choose to take the DNA vaccine, we will make the doses available for them as well," Dr Patel added.

ZyCovD efficacy against Delta variant

Talking about the ZyCovD efficacy data, Dr Patel noted that authorisation of the COVID vaccine had been based on Phase 1, Phase 2 and interim Phase 3 efficacy data. Currently, that number stood at 66%. According to him the fully published data for Phase 3 will be made available in 4-6 months. 

"We have one data which is our 3-dose data. It was post April and May and we know 90% of cases were driven by the Delta variant in India. For us, we can safely say that our efficacy is 66% based on interim data. Fully published data for Phase 3 will be available in 4-6 months. Doses will not be different for adults or adolescents," he stated.

He also noted that Zydus Cadila had not found any serious adverse effects in its trial since it is devoid of vector-based immunity.