India's Gennova Biopharmaceuticals is working on an Omicron-specific COVID-19 vaccine candidate that could be ready in a month or two, a person with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
The source, who did not want to be named as the information was private, said the product might need a small trial in India before it could be rolled out as a booster or standalone vaccine.
A representative for Gennova, a unit of drugmaker Emcure Pharmaceuticals that does business in some 70 countries, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Pfizer Inc said last week a redesigned COVID-19 vaccine that specifically targets the Omicron coronavirus variant could be ready to launch by March.
The source said Gennova on Friday separately submitted to India's drug regulator phase 2 trial data for its original mRNA vaccine candidate. The government said last year that product was found to be "safe, tolerable, and immunogenic" in the participants of an initial study.
f given emergency-use approval, this would be the country's first mRNA COVID-19 vaccine like the ones developed by Pfizer and Moderna.
(Reuters)