Zydus Lifesciences

Zydus CadilaLifesciences is headquartered in Ahmedabad, India, and ranks 4th in the Indian pharmaceutical industry. The group has manufacturing sites and research facilities spread across five states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, and Sikkim in India and in the United States and Brazil.Its major areas of research include new chemical entity, biologics, and vaccines.

Zydus CadilaLifesciences has reportedly fast-tracked research and development efforts into vaccine candidates for SARS-CoV-2. One of the candidates is based on a plasmid DNA platform, which is being developed by the firm's Vaccine Technology Centre in India. The research center previously developed India's first vaccine for the H1N1 "Swine Flu" epidemic n 2010.

Zydus CadilaLifesciences's second SARS-CoV-2 candidate is based on an a live attenuated recombinant measles virus vectored vaccine against COVID-19. The recombinant measles virus (rMV) produced by reverse genetics would express codon-optimised proteins of the novel coronavirus and is meant induce long-term specific neutralizing antibodies, which will provide protection from the infection. The rMV vaccine candidate is being developed by Zydus CadilaLifesciences's European research arm, Etna Biotech.