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Agencies:

NEW DELHI: Zydus Cadila's move to begin human trials of its indigenously developed vaccine for COVID-19 is an important milestone for an ''Atmanirbhar Bharat'', Department of Biotechnology, Secretary Renu Swarup said today.

Zydus Cadila on Wednesday said it has initiated Phase 1 and 2 clinical trials of its COVID-19 vaccine. ZyCoV-D, the plasmid DNA vaccine designed and developed by Zydus, has been partially funded by the Department of Biotechnology under the National Biopharma Mission. This makes it the first indigenously developed vaccine for coronavirus to be administered in humans in the country, the DBT secretary said in a statement.

"This is an important milestone for "Atmanirbhar Bharat" as Zydus begins human clinical trials for the indigenously developed vaccine. We hope that the vaccine continues to show positive outcomes as it has done so far in the pre clinical phase where it was found to be safe, immunogenic and well tolerated," she said.