New Delhi: Serum Institute of India (SII) has already produced around 50 million dosages of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine ‘Covishield’. Serum Institute plans to scale it up to 100 million by March 2021, an official said Monday. The official also said the company is awaiting approval for emergency use authorisation for ‘Covishield’.
The company has recently launched India’s first indigenously developed pneumococcal vaccine – ‘PNEUMOSIL’- for children. SII said the scaling up of the COVID-19 vaccine would also depend on the overall demand from the government.
In order to introduce an urgently needed vaccine against COVID-19 in India, SII has entered into collaboration with the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca to manufacture Covishield. The Pune-based company has applied to the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) seeking emergency use authorization.
“We have already manufactured 40-50 million dosages of ‘Covishield’ vaccine. The rollout of the vaccine is expected to be a bit slow in the initial phase due to logistics issue. It is expected to pick up once things get sorted,” SII CEO Adar Poonawalla told reporters. He added that the company plans to ramp up the vaccine production to 100 million dosages per month by March next year. The coming up of SII’s third manufacturing facility will speed up vaccine production, Poonawalla said. He hoped that by next month, the vaccine will be approved in India.
“Some shortage can be expected in the first six months. Things will ease out by August-September as other manufacturers will also start supplies,” he added.
Poonawalla noted that DCGI is examining the vaccine data submitted by various companies in detail. He said the approvals are expected to come in the next few days.
Also read: Serum Institute of India seeks emergency use nod for Covishield vaccine
Union Minister Harsh Vardhan said everybody in India is looking forward to the regulatory approvals for the COVID-19 vaccine in the next few days.
“We are all waiting for the approvals to come. We know that SII has developed capacities which can cater to India as well as many other countries through various global associations,” Vardhan said.
Vardhan was asked on the new strain of coronavirus. The minister said the government laboratories had already initiated the genome sequencing work few months ago.
“We asked the laboratories what new is coming out in the tests…India has the capability to fight any virus or disease,” he noted.
Besides SII, Bharat Biotech and Pfizer have also applied to DCGI seeking emergency use authorisation for their COVID-19 vaccines early this month.