Panacea Biotec, Refana enter landmark collaboration for COVID-19 Vaccine

The collaboration aims to bring to patients a whole inactivated virus-based vaccine for COVID-19. Under the collaboration, Panacea Biotec will be responsible for product development and commercial manufacturing, with the Joint Venture undertaking clinical development and regulatory submissions across the World. Both Panacea and Refana will undertake sales and distribution of the vaccine in their respective territories.

Dr. Rajesh Jain, Managing Director, Panacea Biotec, said, "The world needs a vaccine that is safe, effective, and scalable in a cGMP compliant manufacturing facility that has sizeable capacity and capability to cater to global demand. Our collaboration with Refana aims to manufacture over 500 million doses of our COVID-19 candidate vaccine, with over 40 million doses expected to be available for delivery early next year. Whole inactivated viral vaccines have a higher probability of being safe and efficacious, given their long history and better understanding of their mechanism of action, which has been elucidated over many decades. This vaccine has the potential to become the Vaccine of Choice for the global fight against COVID-19. We believe and hope that our vaccine will enable the world to get back to work fearlessly as soon as possible."