In April 2020, the company announced that they have partnered with US-based company FluGen and
University of Wisconsin-Madison to develop a COVID-19 vaccine. In May 2020, Indian Council of Medical Research's (
ICMR's)
National Institute of Virology approved and provided the virus strains for developing a fully indigenous
COVID-19 vaccine. On June 29, 2020, the company got permission to conduct Phase 1 and Phase 2
clinical trials in India for a developmental
COVID-19 vaccine named
Covaxin, from the Drugs Controller General of India (
DCGI),
Government of India. The Central Drugs Laboratory (CDL) at Kasauli in Himachal Pradesh has been engaged in testing experimental batches of Bharat Biotech's COVID-19 vaccine Covaxin on a priority basis. A total of 12 sites were selected by the
Indian Council for Medical Research for Phase I and II randomised, double-blind and placebo-controlled clinical trials of vaccine candidate. In September 2020, the company announced that it was going to manufacture the novel
chimp-adenovirus, a single dose
intranasal vaccine (codenamed
BBV154) for
COVID-19 being developed in collaboration with the American company Precision virologics and
Washington University School of Medicine in
St. Louis, Missouri. It is currently undergoing clinical trials. On October 12, 2021, Bharat Biotech's Covaxin got approved for usage on children between 2 and 18 years of age.
Attempted data theft In March 2021,
Reuters reported that Chinese state-backed cyber-espionage group
Red Apollo targeted Bharat Biotech's intellectual property for
exfiltration. == Vaccine Trials ==