An Insightful Visit to Gennova Biopharmaceuticals Ltd.15/02/2021

Wednesday, 20th January, the Consul General of Belgium Mr. Pierre- Emmanuel Brusselmans and AWEX Trade Commissioner Ms. Emmanuelle Timmermans along with AWEX Trade and Investment Team Ms. Tanuja Pawar and Ms. Heena Rathod, had the pleasure to visit Gennova Biopharmaceuticals Ltd (GBL), in Pune. The company already shares innovative relations with our Walloon company Univercells.

GBL is a Biotechnology company dedicated to the development, production and commercialization of bio-therapeutics to address life-threatening diseases across various indications. Currently, they are also working on COVID-19 candidate vaccine HGCO19. It will soon conduct phase 1/2 clinical trials. The expertise of Gennova in personalized medicine in the oncology field, helped them coming with this innovative proposition of vaccine. It is India’s first indigenous COVID-19 vaccine based on the messenger RNA platform, developed in collaboration with HDT Biotech Corporation. The company uses the most prominent mutant of spike protein (D614G) as well as the self-amplifying mRNA platform, which gives the advantage of a low dosing regimen compared with the non-replicating mRNA or traditional vaccines. Unlike the Pfizer vaccine, Gennova claims that HGCO19 can be stored at around 2 to 8 degrees Celsius for a month. HGCO19 has already demonstrated safety, immunogenicity and neutralization antibody activity in animals.

We were cordially welcomed by the Gennova team – Dr. Sanjay Singh (CEO), Dr. Rajesh Kumar Singh (Associate Director), Dr. Tathagata Mukherjee (Deputy General Manager – R&D) and had a chance to meet some of the heads behind this vaccine. The discussion was constructive, and together we explored several different possible collaborations. Belgium and Wallonia, because of its expertise in Life Science Ecosystem, and its proven capability during the pandemic challenge in the fields of logistics, supply chain, vaccine manufacturing, R&D, etc. holds the ability to combine hands with GBL at various levels.

We wish Gennova Biopharmaceuticals all the best for their trials and are looking forward to manifest the best collaborations in the future.