Govt funds 16 cos for Covid-19 cure R&D

In an attempt to efface Covid-19 from the country, the department of biotechnology has granted funds o the tune of ₹50 crore to ₹200 crore to 16 companies for developing drugs, vaccines and devices to fight the virus. 

Zydus Cadila and Bharat Biotech are among those who received funds for developing a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2. While the former is developing a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2, which causes Covid-19; the latter is using the inactivated rabies vector platform. Funds were also disbursed to Serum Institute of India to scale up the phase 3 human trials of a recombinant BCG vaccine and to National Institute of Immunology for development of a novel vaccine evaluation platform.