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A Bangladeshi company on Thursday claimed to have developed a Covid-19 vaccine and completed preliminary animal trial successfully.
The vaccine developing company namely Globe Biotech Ltd, a sister concern of Globe Pharmaceuticals Group of Companies Ltd, also claimed that they have started developing testing kit, vaccine and medicine since March 08 when the first Covid-19 case was detected in the country.
If all the phases can be completed successfully, the vaccine can be marketed within next six months, they added.
"Our engineered antigen and formulation are producing high affinity antibody in animal model against Covid-19 spike protein. We have concluded the animal-model preliminary trial and now we will go for regulated animal trial," research and development in-charge of Globe Biotech Asif Mahmud said at a press conference in the capital.
The preliminary trial was done on three rabbits in a level 3 biosafety lab, he added.
"We are here to announce that we are well in the race of Covid-19 vaccine development. We hope it will be effective in human body as it was found in animal. We will seek ethical approval from Bangladesh Medical Research Council for clinical trial after the regulated animal trial."
Mr Mahmud also said they were yet to patent their efforts.
Harunur Rashid, chairman of Globe Biotech, said the company has a capacity to produce 7.0 million vials of the vaccine if they finally get market authorization from the Directorate General of Drug Administration.
Established in 2015, Globe Biotech has no product in its profile.
It has six pipeline products, including two for cancer, under the review of the BMRC, said Mr. Harun.