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Hyderabad, Jun 30: Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech announced that it has successfully developed Covaxin, India's first vaccine candidate for Covid-19, in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and National Institute of Virology (NIV).

The Drug Controller General of India - CDSCO, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare granted permission to initiate Phase I & II Human clinical trials after the company submitted results generated from preclinical studies, demonstrating safety and immune response. Human clinical trials are scheduled to start across India in July 2020.

The SARS-CoV-2 strain was isolated in NIV, Pune and transferred to Bharat Biotech.

The indigenous, inactivated vaccine developed and manufactured in the company's Bio-Safety Level 3 (BSL-3) High Containment facility located in Genome Valley, Hyderabad.

Announcing the vaccine development milestone, Dr Krishna Ella, Chairman and Managing Director said: "We are proud to announce COVAXIN, India's first indigenous vaccine against COVID-19. The collaboration with ICMR and NIV was instrumental in the development of this vaccine."

Dr Ella added, "The proactive support and guidance from CDSCO has enabled approvals to this project. Our R&D and Manufacturing teams worked tirelessly to deploy our proprietary technologies towards this platform."
Expedited through national regulatory protocols, the company accelerated its objective in completing the comprehensive pre-clinical studies. Results from these studies have been promising and show extensive safety and effective immune responses.

Speaking about Bharat Biotech's prowess, Suchitra Ella, Joint Managing Director said, "Our ongoing research and expertise in forecasting epidemics has enabled us to successfully manufacture a vaccine for the H1N1 pandemic."
"Continuing our focus on creating the only BSL-3 containment facilities for manufacturing and testing in India, Bharat Biotech is committed to advancing vaccine development as a matter of national importance to demonstrate India's strength in handling future pandemics," she added.

Bharat Biotech's track record in developing vero cell culture platform technologies has been proven in several vaccines for Polio, Rabies, Rotavirus, Japanese Encephalitis, Chikungunya and Zika.

Jan 15: Amazon.com Inc Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos is facing a bitter welcome during his India visit this week as the country’s antitrust regulator initiated a formal investigation just hours before his arrival and trader bodies comprising millions of infuriated small store owners announced demonstrations.

Bezos is in New Delhi for the Smbhav summit, an Amazon India event for small and medium businesses. The billionaire is scheduled to conduct a fireside chat with Amazon India chief Amit Agarwal, anchoring an event that also features Infosys Ltd. co-founder Narayana Murthy and retail billionaire Kishore Biyani, who recently sold a stake in his retail group to Amazon. Ahead of the event, Bezos paid his respects at Mahatma Gandhi’s memorial, wearing a white tunic and a rust-colored Indian vest.

The small businesses that Amazon’s CEO is hoping to endear himself to, however, are organizing in opposition. The Confederation of All India Traders announced that members of its affiliate bodies across the country would stage sit-ins and public rallies in 300 cities to raise a war cry against the world’s largest online retailer. In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week, the confederation’s Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal alleged that Amazon, much like Walmart Inc.-owned Flipkart, was an “economic terrorist” who engaged in predatory pricing that deprived the government of tax revenue and “compelled the closure of thousands of small traders.”

India’s e-commerce market is projected to grow to $150 billion by 2022, according to a 2018 report by software industry group Nasscom and consulting firm PwC India. Competition for this rapidly expanding sector is intensifying as Asia’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, prepares to go live with JioMart, an online shopping platform challenging Amazon and Walmart directly. The latter’s Flipkart Online Services Pvt is also delving deeper into the countryside in its pursuit for more customers. Amazon, for its part, opened a huge office complex in the southern city of Hyderabad in September, underscoring its commitment to the country.

The Competition Commission of India said it would probe the deep discounts, preferential listings and exclusionary tactics that Amazon and Flipkart are alleged to have used as anti-competitive levers. India’s trade bodies have long argued that both retail giants were flouting rules by promoting sales and discounts through their favoured sellers, many of whom they have preexisting commercial arrangements. The regulator has ordered for the investigation to be completed within two months.

Bezos last visited India in 2014 under starkly different circumstances. During that trip, the Amazon founder wore local festive garb, rode atop a festooned truck for a photo opp and presented Amazon’s Indian unit with a giant check for $2 billion. Since then, Amazon has pledged a further $3.5 billion to expand in the country.

New Delhi, May 9: The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to consider a plea raising the issue of mass termination and the illegal salary cut of employees in IT/ITES/BPO/KPI by their employers during the lockdown due to the spread of the coronavirus.

A bench comprising Justices Ashok Bhushan, S.K. Kaul and B.R. Gavai, taking up the matter through video conferencing, agreed to examine the issue and listed it for May 15.

The petition, argued by senior advocate Devadatt Kamat, was filed by National Information Technology Employees Sena (NITES) through advocate-on-record Amit Pai, and sought implementation of directions issued by the Centre on March 29 and similar advisories issued by several other states mandating payment of wages/salaries to the employees and also directed not to terminate them during the period of lockdown.

A directive was issued by the Union Ministry of Labour and Empowerment to all Chief Secretaries of state governments to issue advisories to public and private companies to not lay off employees or implement pay cuts during lockdown.

In the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) report published on April 19, it was noted that "several companies across the country have started to terminate its employees without any reasonable cause and have started withholding their salaries. It is submitted that in such testing times, the rights of the employees ought to be protected by necessary orders/directions to the companies through the Respondents to effectively implement the lockdown and to contain the spread of the virus", said the plea.

On March 29, the Centre issued an order directing all states and Union Territories to issue orders, requiring all the employers in the industrial sector and shops and commercial establishments to pay wages on the due date without any deduction during their closure due to the lockdown.