Ahmedabad drug firms in race for H1N1 vaccine

With this approval “Zydus Cadila becomes the first Indian pharma company to commence multi-centric clinical trials of its vaccine,” the firm said in a statement.

The group’s experts at its Vaccine Technology Centre in Ahmedabad have developed Zydus Cadila’s egg-based inactivated vaccine.

Elsewhere,CPL is in the process of completing a vaccine manufacturing facility to produce H1N1 vaccine using the virus like particles (VLP) technology in collaboration with the US-based company,Novavax.

CPL Biologicals Pvt Ltd,the newly formed joint venture between Cadila Pharma,expects to start producing the H1N1 swine flu vaccine in the next three-four months. At present,the H1N1 vaccine market is estimated to be 676 million dollars. The market is expected to cross the 7 billion dollar mark by 2011.

In recent times,the H1N1 influenza has claimed thousands of lives across the globe.

“With the vaccine in the market soon,we should be able to prevent further loss of lives to this infectious disease,” said Zydus Cadila CMD Pankaj Patel. The vaccine is expected to hit the markets by April this year,the company said.