Serum Institute eyeing 100 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine by December: Report

The Serum Institute
of India is aiming to produce 100 million doses of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19
vaccine by the month of December, the company’s chief executive Adar Poonawala
told Bloomberg.

Poonawala
said that Serum, which is partnered to manufacture one billion doses, may get
emergency authorisation for use of the vaccine by December, if the results from the final stages of trials show significant protection from the virus.

Serum has
collaborated with five developers and has already made 40 million doses of the AstraZeneca
vaccine, to be sold in India as Covishield.  

Serum also intends to start manufacturing
another vaccine from Novavax soon.

“We were concerned
it was a big risk,” Poonawala said, adding that both vaccines “are looking pretty
good”.

AstraZeneca
and its co-developers University of Oxford are yet to see their testing results.
And there still remains question marks over how quickly they can distribute the
vaccine, after it proves its efficacy.

Poonawala
said that affordability and manufacturing hurdles will make it difficult to vaccinate
the entire planet before 2024, saying it might take two years to see a real decrease
in infections.

However, following
talks with the government, he is assured of their plans of getting the vaccine out to the frontline
workers and other vulnerable people first.

The real challenge, he said, will be
to get the vaccine out to the massive rural populations, where shoddy health
care systems have hindered inoculation drives in the past.

Commenting on the vaccine developed by American and German firms Pfizer and BioNTech, Poonawala said that the AstraZeneca vaccine has a significant edge in terms of their storage requirements. 

The Pfizer vaccine grabbed headlines around the globe with the announcement of its 90% efficacy. However, it needs to be stored at -70 degrees Celsius and Poonawala said it will be “impossible” for most of the world to have that kind of infrastructure at that scale.