Megalab gets ₹ 300-cr fund to develop Ayurvedic Covid vax
image for illustrative purpose
Mumbai The IIT Alumni Council-founded Megalab has secured a Rs 300-crore seed funding and is developing a two-dose Ayurveda-based coronavirus vaccine that can stop the spread of the deadly virus and prevent infection within a few days of the first dose.
The city-based Megalab, set up last April by the council to drive the fight against the pandemic with ideas and money, will also be importing available vaccines from the West to be distributed first in Mumbai and then elsewhere, the alumni council president Ravi Sharma told PTI on Thursday. Sharma said the seed funding is part of the emergency funds lying with Social Fund, the financing arm of the council and forms part of the Rs 21,000 crore fund raising announced last April in the peak of the first wave of the pandemic. He said the proposed vaccine, which will be available for sale over the next six months, is an Ayurveda-based adjuvant vaccine that will have both injectable and nasal drops variants, and is expected to improve efficacy, reduce side effects, and work across all variants of the virus that has killed more than 2.6 lakh people in the country already.
On the plan to imports vaccines, he said the move follows the US supporting patent waiver on Covid vaccines and should begin within a fortnight for distribution in Mumbai.
