Ocugen, Inc. (NASDAQ: OCGN), a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing, and commercializing gene therapies to cure blindness diseases and developing a vaccine to save lives from COVID-19.
Today they announced that in a new study, scientists at Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)-National Institute of Virology have found that COVAXIN demonstrated potential effectiveness against the Brazil variant of SARS-CoV-2, B.1.128.2.
As previously disclosed, a study conducted by ICMR also suggested that COVAXIN was effective against the UK variant, B.1.1.7, as well as the Indian double mutant variant, B.1.617. It is notable that the Brazilian variant, B1.128.2, contains the E484K mutation that was found in New York.
In the ICMR studies, COVAXIN-vaccinated sera effectively neutralized several SARS-CoV-2 variants (B.1.617 (India, double mutant), B.1.1.7 (United Kingdom), B.1.1.28 (Brazil P2), and heterologous strain) in an in-vitro plaque reduction neutralization assay. These studies suggest that COVAXIN vaccination may be effective against multiple SARS-CoV-2 variants.
“We are pleased to see the results of this study as it demonstrates the potential effectiveness of COVAXIN against multiple variants, further strengthening our belief that this vaccine can potentially eliminate the possibility of mutant virus escape,” said Dr. Satish Chandran, chair of the vaccine scientific advisory board of Ocugen.
“COVAXIN continues to show strong results in all the studies conducted to date. We continue to believe this vaccine is a critical tool to include in our national arsenal to fight this pandemic. The Ocugen team submitted a comprehensive drug master file with the FDA and is currently diligently preparing the EUA application,” said Dr. Shankar Musunuri, Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer, and Co-founder of Ocugen.
Ocugen is developing COVAXIN, Bharat Biotech’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate, for the U.S. market. In the recently shared second interim results of the Phase 3 clinical trial, COVAXIN demonstrated 78% overall efficacy and 100% in severe COVID-19 disease (including hospitalization).
