By Dhirendra Tripathi
Investing.com – Ocugen stock (NASDAQ:OCGN) climbed 7% in Wednesday’s premarket trading after the company said it has data suggesting its Covid-19 vaccine could provide protection against both current and future variants of the virus.
The company said it is currently evaluating the vaccine, Covaxin, against the Omicron variant and plans to share the data as soon as they are available.
Labelled "of concern" by the World Health Organization, Omicron has been reported in more than 60 countries, including China, and now dominates the Delta variant in many nations. Said to be spreading faster than Delta, Omicron has forced countries in Europe and Australia to bring back restrictions on movement of people and business activities.
Ocugen said the vaccine generated a robust immune memory against the virus and that the protection persisted for at least 6 months.
Covaxin has been developed by India’s Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research-National Institute of Virology. Ocugen is co-developing Covaxin with Bharat Biotech for U.S. and Canadian markets and has the rights to market the vaccine in the two countries once the regulators approve.
Covaxin is the second-most administered vaccine in India, one of the countries worst affected by the pandemic in the first half of this year.