ICMR tie up with Bharat Biotech for Indian COVID-19 vaccine

The Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) tie-up with Bharat Biotech to develop indigenous COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccine is to be developed using virus strains that have been isolated from COVD-19 patients at ICMR’s National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune.

ICMR has shared one of the 11 virus strains that it managed to culture with Bharat Biotech. The industry partnership is to develop the vaccine candidate and ICMR has transferred the technology to them One of the strains has now been successfully transferred from NIV to Bharat Biotech International Ltd. (BBIL) in Hyderabad as part of the partnership. ICMR-NIV will provide continuous support to BBIL for vaccine development.

Important takeaways for all competitive exams

• Director-General of ICMR: Balram Bhargava.
• Headquarters of ICMR: New Delhi.