Pune-based SII starts production of Covid-19 vaccines

Pune-based Serum Institute of India has reportedly started producing a vaccine for Covid-19.  Clinical trials are still in the first stage.  But manufacturing has started.  How come?  

Here is an explanation by Varun Jhaveri, a bureaucrat.  “Typically, trial and manufacturing for a new vaccine happen in parallel. If the trial succeeds, the vaccine is allowed to be sold. If they don’t, it’s a loss to the manufacturers.  In all, vaccine development is a high risk, high reward mechanism.”  

Moving on to the Serum Institute, the company has got huge plans.  Speaking in his latest interview, Adar Poonawala, its CEO, tells this to Business Today: “While the clinical trials have already commenced in the UK, we are simultaneously initiating production as well, in the hope that when the trials are successful, we will have the first batch of doses ready for use by September or October… We are also working on conducting human trials in India in May 2020.”  

At what price is the company going to sell each unit of the vaccine?  “It is too early to give the exact price of the vaccine at this point, however we will surely make it affordable, maybe around Rs 1,000,” he tells the magazine.  

Poonawala recently said that Narendra Modi’s “vision for improving health care in India has helped clear many hurdles that vaccine manufacturers” were facing in the past.