HYDERABAD: In a major collaborative effort, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and Aurobindo Pharma Limited have announced that they would together to develop vaccines to counter the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

As per an agreement signed between CSIR’s lab — Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) and Aurobindo Pharma on Tuesday, the latter will take up the clinical development and commercialisation of the various vaccines developed by the CSIR Labs.

At present,three CSIR labs — CCMB Hyderabad, Institute of Medical Technology (IMTECH), Chandigarh and Indian Institute of Chemical Biology (IICB), Kolkata — are in the process of developing vaccine candidates using different technology platforms. 

As per the agreement, Aurobindo will undertake commercialisation and manufacturing aspects.The officials of Aurobindo Pharma stated that the manufacturing facility will come up in Hyderabad. 

“This collaboration further strengthens our Covid-19 vaccine development efforts. We are already setting up a large-scale facility in Hyderabad for manufacturing Covid-19 and other viral vaccines,” said N Govindarajan, Managing Director of Aurobindo Pharma Limited.

“Of the three labs in the race for a perfect vaccine candidate, CSIR-CCMB, based out of Hyderabad, is presently working on novel proteins for vaccine development that have the potential to address the need for a second-generation vaccine,” said Dr Rakesh Mishra, CCMB Director.