Bharat Biotech, IVI begin Chikungunya vaccine Phase 2, 3 trial in Costa Rica

The development is the start of a multi-country study led by IVI in partnership with Bharat Biotech and funded by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) with support from the Ind-CEPI mission of the Department of Biotechnology, India, it said.

Krishna Ella, Chairman and Managing Director of Bharat Biotech International Limited, said: "Epidemic preparedness is a vital step in public health care. Bharat Biotech's vaccine candidate is an ingenious, well-researched vaccine, and we thank the first volunteer from Costa Rica for participating in this study. The IVI-led multi-country scale human trial has begun an important trial phase in furthering the evaluation of safety and immunogenicity."

The announcement furthers CEPI's USD 3.5 bn plan, launched in March 2021, to tackle future epidemics and pandemics, which includes advancing vaccine candidates against known high-risk pathogens such as Chikungunya.

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CEPI first partnered with IVI and Bharat Biotech in June 2020, providing up to USD 14.1 million for vaccine manufacturing and clinical development of the BBV87 vaccine candidate.

The funding is supported by the European Union's (EU's) Horizon 2020 programme through an existing framework partnership agreement with CEPI.

The consortium was also supported with a grant of up to USD 2.0 million from the Indian Government's Ind-CEPI initiative to fund the set-up of GMP manufacturing facilities for the vaccine in India and subsequent manufacture of clinical trial materials, the release added.