COVID-19: CEO of Serum institute responds to Anand Mahindra's 'Big V vaccine' tweet

After actor Amitabh Bachchan announced that he tested negative for COVID-19, Indian business tycoon Anand Mahindra took to Twitter to urge CEO of Serum Institute to manufacture the ‘Big V vaccine’. Mahindra in the post wished the Bollywood actor a speedy recovery and said that “There’s a vaccine you possess”. The Managing Director of the multinational conglomerate, Mahindra Group, in a lighthearted aside, even tagged Adar Poonawalla and asked him to find to a way to extract ‘Big V’ from Bachchan and manufacture it. 

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Poonawalla is the CEO and owner of the Serum Institute on India. SII is the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer and it will be mass-producing doses of a potential vaccine against coronavirus. As Mahindra tagged Poonawallla, the SII CEO responded to the tweet and assured that ‘scientists were already working on it’. 

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Serum-Oxford COVID vaccine 

While the exchange between Mahindra and Poonawalla delighted several internet users, it was reported coronavirus vaccine developed at the Oxford University will be in India by November. The SII recently also received Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) approval to conduct phase 2 and 3 human clinical trials of its potential COVID-19 vaccine in India.

According to the study design, the drug-firm will be administrating each subject with two doses four weeks apart. The researchers will be assessing the safety and immunogenicity at predefined intervals. The domestic pharma giant has partnered with British drugmaker AstraZeneca for manufacturing the Oxford vaccine candidate for COVID-19.

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