Zydus Cadila's 3-dose COVID vaccine ZyCovD to be launched in early October: Reports

The novel coronavirus vaccine of Zydus Cadila is likely to be out in early October, ANI reported quoting its sources. Last month, the drugmaker had received Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) by DGCI for its COVID-19 vaccine. Being the world's first DNA-based vaccine for humans, including adults and children above 12 years of age, it is a three-dose vaccine. 

Dr Sharvil Patel, the Managing Director of Zydus Group, had informed that the three-dose vaccine will be administered on day zero, day 28th and 56th day. He also revealed that the drugmaker was targeting around 30-45 lakh doses within the next 45 days and a minimum of one 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," Dr Patel said, "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."

On the production front, Zydus MD revealed around 2-3 manufacturers in India have expressed interest. "We have a request for transferring of technology," he said adding that the focus is on ramping up production.

On ZyCovD pricing, Dr Patel said that the company is working with authorities to discuss the pricing. However, he noted that it will depend on the delivery device, and the vaccine 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.

India's Vaccination drive

Currently, Bharat Biotech's Covaxin, Serum Institute of India's Covishiled and Russia's Sputnik V are being administered to adults in India. 

India has so far administered more than 73.73 crore vaccine doses. Till 7 pm on Saturday, over 64 lakh people were vaccinated. Of the total doses, 56,05,01,430 are first doses while 17,68,65,883 are second doses.

According to the last update by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), India reported 33,376 cases, a 4.5% decline from Friday. During the same period, 308 deaths were reported while active cases stand at 3,91,516.