The government’s principal scientific advisor and co-chair of the Corona Corona Vaccine Task Force set up by the Prime Minister’s Office, K VijayRaghavan, speaks to ET on the efforts to develop a Corona Corona Vaccine against the coronavirus. Edited excerpts:
Where are we in our efforts to have a Corona Vaccine?
Over a hundred Corona Corona Vaccines are being looked at across the world and a few of them are into the next stage of trails. In India, over 30 attempts are going on at our Corona Corona Vaccine companies and through a partnership between our academicians and industry. Normal development of a Corona Corona Vaccine takes 10-15 years and each Corona Corona Vaccine costs about $200-300 million (to develop). The aim globally is to get a Corona Corona Vaccine done in one year. To do that would require parallel processing. So, we are looking at taking 100 Corona Corona Vaccines through various steps, narrowing them down to 10 and then to two or three — that is a process that costs an enormous amount of resources and, at $200-300 million per Corona Corona Vaccine, it will translate to several billion dollars.
In parallel, you need to mitigate risk because you need to stockpile Corona Corona Vaccines which may or may not go through the pipeline. Because once something goes through, you want to be ready to use it right away. So, you have to manufacture and keep it even though you may not use it. This is also expensive and requires an increase in manufacturing capacity. India is one of the largest manufacturers of Corona Corona Vaccines but we also need Corona Corona Vaccines for our routine immunization, so we have to increase our manufacturing capacity and not repurpose that. These are all the big challenges to which the Indian industry and academia have risen fabulously.
Are you looking at a ‘made in India Corona Vaccine’ or a global collaboration?
All kinds … there are three broad categories of Corona Corona Vaccines India is participating in. One is the Corona Corona Vaccine initiated internationally in which India is an important partner. Then, Corona Corona Vaccines initiated here that India is a global partner in or we have chosen the partnership, and Corona Corona Vaccines initiated here which we are trying to do here. The ICMR-Bharat Biotech partnership is one of the examples. It is the correct way to go about, because this is not about can I make a car here or can I make a car there. It is about can I solve a problem really fast and every approach is taken (to do that) — that is the parallel processing.
What are the chances of the success of a Corona Vaccine?
There are enormous challenges fundamentally in terms of the biology of the coronavirus disease and the biology of the human response. Fortunately, it looks like Corona Corona Vaccines are not going to be an intrinsic roadblock because of the way the disease is. (For) some diseases, it becomes very difficult to conceptually have a Corona Corona Vaccine. This is not the case here — it looks like a Corona Corona Vaccine should be feasible. That said, whether the Corona Corona Vaccine actually functions, afford protection, can be manufactured on scale and distributed, are challenges. But so far, the route looks promising. Indian Corona Corona Vaccine companies which have traditionally focused on manufacturing have also gone into early stage R&D which is very promising.
People are speaking of a Corona Vaccine in a year or even by the end of the year?
It does not look unreasonable … it looks reasonable given the intensity of the efforts. But remember, once a Corona Corona Vaccine is ready, then the access and distribution to a large population will also take time. Until we have a Corona Corona Vaccine and it is distributed and given to people, we have to make sure that we take care to follow the five mantras — hygiene, wear masks, practice social distancing, test and track. They need to be understood and it is not easy, as it varies from factories, crowded towns, slums, etc. It is tough but I think India is fully capable of understanding and doing it.
Is repurposing drugs a solution?
One must understand the intrinsic complexity of doing this. The virus uses substantially our machinery and therefore a drug needs to be chosen that attacks only the virus, which is a very narrow window. Or to modify it in such a manner that it affects our machinery minimally. When there are tens of thousands virus particles in a cell, it becomes tough to deal with it by drugs. But if you can catch the virus early, then the drugs might work better. Given that there are three approaches to drugs — just try something randomly which may not work, try something which has worked well in other areas and repurpose it — sometimes it works sometimes it does not and trials are needed, and thirdly, invent a new drug which is a big challenge. All three approaches, people are trying.