Published in The Daily Star
Dated: 03 July, 2020

A little known Bangladeshi company yesterday claimed it has made a Covid-19 vaccine and that the vaccine has shown primary effectiveness during trial on rabbits.

Officials of the company — Globe Biotech Limited — said they were preparing for the next stage of the trial, on humans, after getting approval from Bangladesh Medical and Research Council.

“Our vaccine is producing high affinity antibody in animal model against Covid-19 spike protein,’ Asif Mahmud, in-charge of research and development of Globe Biotech, said at a briefing at the company’s office in the capital’s Tejgaon.

On June 10, scientists at Biotech administered their vaccine on rabbits, he said, adding that analysing their blood samples, they found antibody against the coronavirus.

“We will now perform a regulated animal trial for this vaccine. We will need six-eight weeks for that. Then we will go to Bangladesh Medical Research Council for [conducting] the human trial,” Asif Mahmud said.

He said their research was not yet published in any journals.Established in 2015, Globe Biotech has no product in its profile.

Company Chairman Harunur Rashid, however, said it has six products, including two for treating cancer patients, in the pipeline. In February, the World Health Organisation said it did not expect a vaccine for Covid-19 to become available in less than 18 months.

Source: https://www.thedailystar.net/backpage/news/local-drug-firm-claims-have-made-covid-19-vaccine-1924225