There are only two ways the threat posed by the novel coronavirus can be brought to end: either we wait for the human population developing immunity or don’t wait for the virus having to to infect a large chunk of the global population. For this, we need to have an effective vaccine.
The first alternative is akin to letting the novel coronavirus run its course and can have devastating consequences. Which is why the second option is our best — and, perhaps, the only — bet against the fast-spreading virus. And, there is hope.
India is among the largest manufacturer of generic drugs and vaccines in the world. It is home to half a dozen major vaccine makers and a host of smaller ones, making doses against polio, meningitis, pneumonia, rotavirus, BCG, measles, mumps and rubella, among other diseases.
Now half a dozen Indian firms are developing vaccines against the virus that causes Covid-19.
One of them is Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine maker by number of doses produced and sold globally. The 53-year-old company makes 1.5 billion doses every year, mainly from its two facilities in the western city of Pune. (It has two other small plants in the Netherlands and the Czech Republic.) Around 7,000 people work for the firm.
While the Oxford vaccine, called “ChAdOx1 nCoV-19”, is yet to be proven to work against COVID-19, Serum decided to start manufacturing it as it had shown success in animal trials and had progressed to tests on humans, Serum Chief Executive Adar Poonawalla said.
“They are a bunch of very qualified, great scientists (at Oxford)…That’s why we said we will go with this and that’s why we are confident,” Poonawalla told Reuters in a phone interview.
“Being a private limited company, not accountable to public investors or bankers, I can take a little risk and sideline some of the other commercial products and projects that I had planned in my existing facility,” Poonawalla said.
Serum, owned by the Indian billionaire Cyrus Poonawalla, plans to make the vaccine at its two manufacturing plants in the western city of Pune, aiming to produce up to 400 million doses next year if all goes well, Poonawalla said.
“A majority of the vaccine, at least initially, would have to go to our countrymen before it goes abroad,” he said, adding that Serum would leave it to the Indian government to decide which countries would get how much of the vaccine and when.
Serum envisages a price of 1,000 rupees per vaccine but governments would give it to people without charge, he said.
Currently, six Indian companies are working on a Covid-19 vaccine, joining global efforts to curb spreading of the novel coronavirus that’s infected more than 2 million people so far.
While Zydus Cadila is working on two vaccines, Serum Institute, Biological E, Bharat Biotech, Indian Immunologicals, and Mynvax are developing one vaccine each.
“While Zydus Cadila is working on two vaccines, Serum Institute, Biological E, Bharat Biotech, Indian Immunologicals, and Mynvax are developing one vaccine each.
In this significant cross-continental collaboration, scientists from Indian Immunologicals Limited and Griffith University (Australia) will develop a ‘Live Attenuated SARS – CoV-2 vaccine’ or Covid-19 vaccine using the latest codon de-optimization technology. The technology looks promising for developing a vaccine for prophylactic, active, single dose immunization against coronavirus in humans, with an enhanced safety profile. The vaccine is expected to provide long-lasting protection with a single dose administration with an anticipated safety profile similar to other licensed vaccines for active immunization.
