Serum Institute to begin Covid vaccine production to get head start in case trial succeeds

One of the largest producers of vaccines in the world Serum Institute of India (SII) on Sunday revealed that it will begin work on the production of the COVID-19 vaccine which has been developed by Oxford University in the next two-three weeks.

The Pune-based firm revealed that if clinical trials of the vaccine are successful then the COVID vaccine would be out in the market by October. Over 800 healthy volunteers have been recruited for the study being injected with ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, making this the sixth coronavirus vaccine to enter the first phase of clinical trials.

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“SII will be manufacturing the vaccine in anticipation of clinical trials succeeding by September-October in the UK… Following that, SII has undertaken the decision to initiate the manufacture at their own risk. The decision has been solely taken to have a jump-start on manufacturing, to have enough doses available, if the clinical trials work,” said Adar Poonawalla, chief executive officer of the Indian vaccine major, said in a statement.

Adar Poonawalla while speaking to news agency PTI added that their firm had been working closely with Dr Hill from Oxford University and was looking to produce five million doses per month for the first 6 months, following which, they hoped to scale up production to 10 million doses per month. "Keeping the current situation in mind, we have funded this endeavor at a personal capacity and hopefully will be able to enlist the support of other partners to further scale-up the vaccine production,” Poonawalla said.

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The vaccine is made from a weakened version of a common cold adenovirus taken from chimps and genetically modified to make it impossible for it to infect humans, as per a statement. 

SII added that it will not patent any Covid-19 vaccine which it develops. “We will not patent Serum’s vaccine for Covid-19 and will make it available for all to produce and sell, not just in India but across the world," said Poonawalla. "We are in touch with the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research),” he added.

“I hope that whichever company develops the vaccine does not get it patented and makes it available based on royalties or a commercial understanding to as many manufacturers across the world to make billions of dosages at a fast pace,” he concluded.

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(With agency inputs)