Serum Institute of India (SII) has began manufacturing the 1st batch of the Covovax Covid-19 vaccine from Friday at its Manjari facility in Pune. Covovax has been created by US biotech enterprise Novavax. SII has a collaboration with Novavax for manufacturing the vaccine for India and other low earnings nations. This is the second vaccine to be manufactured by SII soon after the Oxford AztraZeneca Covishield vaccine.
Adar Poonawalla, CEO, SII, who has returned to India from the UK and witnessed the 1st batch becoming manufactured, mentioned a new milestone had been reached with the manufacturing of Covovax.
“The vaccine has great potential to protect our future generations below the age of 18,” Poonawalla mentioned.
Covovax is anticipated to be launched in the nation in September 2021. SII has committed to provide 20 crore Novavax vaccines in between September and December 2021. Trials are going on in the nation and have reached an advance stage. SII will also be beginning Covovax trials on children from July 2021. The enterprise will begin stockpiling the Covovax vaccine in anticipation of regulatory clearance quickly.
The vaccine has demonstrated 90% all round efficacy and one hundred% protection against moderate and extreme illness Covid situations. It also has 93% efficacy against predominantly circulating variants of concern and variants of interest.
SII’s tie-up with Novavax is to manufacture one billion doses of the vaccine in 2021. Serum has got exclusive rights for the vaccine in India and non-exclusive rights throughout the pandemic period in all nations excluding upper-middle/higher-earnings nations. Both partners will be possessing a income sharing arrangement. With the SII agreement, Novavax had planned to have a international production capacity of two billion doses annually. The Gates Foundation has also offered $150 million to SII for manufacturing each the Oxford-AstraZeneca and Novavax vaccine in India.