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With vaccine rollout starting in some countries, the world ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic is looking to India for the large-scale production and supply of coronavirus vaccines as it enters 2021.
Since the pandemic hit the world in 2020, Indian pharma industry rose to the occasion and managed to fabricate and maintain supply chains even during the lockout period, and exported medications like HCQ and paracetamol to more than 150 countries, keeping its image of’Reliable Pharmacy of the World’.
The world is again looking at India as a beacon of hope to fabricate and supply the massive number of vaccines needed to tackle the pandemic.
“India contributes 60 percent of the vaccine manufacturing to the world. India will play a very important role in equitable distribution of vaccines around the world,” Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance (IPA) secretary general Sudarshan Jain told PTI.
While Indian companies such as Zydus, Bharat Biotech and Gennova are developing indigenous vaccines, other domestic organizations are collaborating with global companies such as Serum Institute with AstraZeneca, Dr Reddys with Sputnik and Biological E with J&J, he added.
“India are also a benchmark in vaccine supply and will use technologies to ensure targeted and phased distribution. India has always believed that international cooperation and coordination is essential to meet the COVID situation,” Jain said.
Currently, three COVID-19 vaccines candidates of Bharat Biotech, Serum Institute of India and Pfizer are under active consideration of India’s drug regulator and there is expectation that early licensure is possible for all or some of them, according to the Union health ministry.
Indian Drug Manufacturers’ Association (IDMA) executive director Ashok Kumar Madan said,”we are sure with all the attention given by the authorities, vaccines are also available for use from January 2021 onwards. These vaccines are being approved by our Drugs Controller as per the stringent international norms. We take pride that almost 70 percent of the WHO vaccine procurements are from India”.
Indian firms have used different platforms to create the vaccines. Scientists in these companies have the capability to produce the vaccine to counter the mutated forms in a brief time, ” he added.
On the access to this AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine, Serum Institute of India (SII) CEO Adar Poonawalla told PTI that based on the trial results in India and the UK, and if approvals from regulatory bodies are set up in time,”then we can expect the vaccine to be available in India by January 2021 (only if it’s proven immunogenic and efficacious)”.
Included in various partnerships and collaborations for vaccine candidates, SII will keep aside 50% of whatever quantity of the vaccine candidates are produced for India and the remaining quantity will go to middle and low income countries, he noted.
“So far, under at-risk manufacturing, we have stockpiled 50 million doses. Currently, our capability is 60-70 million doses per month, which will increase up to 100 million doses of the vaccine per month by February 2021. However, we’ll progress to mass production just after it is proven efficacious and immunogenic for mass use,” Poonawalla stated.
About the price of the vaccine, he said,”we want the vaccine to be affordable and accessible to all. The Government of India will receive it at a far more affordable price of USD 3-4, since they’ll be buying in a larger volume. The priority is going to be India and the GAVI countries, and only, the private market will open up where the pricing would be USD 6-8 per dose”.
Stating that Covishield is a very viable and critical vaccine for India and other low-and-middle-income nations, Poonawalla said its effectiveness in terms of affordability and composition makes it much easier to transport and store for long periods at 2-8 C i.e. normal refrigerator temperatures.
“Add to that, we have a longstanding relationship with the Jenner Institute at the University of Oxford for our various other vaccine initiatives and are hopeful it will be an efficacious and immunogenic vaccine viable for mass use,” he added.
The outcomes for the Stage I/II clinical trials of ZyCoV-D vaccine have been submitted to the DCGI (Drugs Controller General of India) and the company hopes to start the Phase III trials, which will be conducted on 30,000 volunteers throughout the country, he added.
“We have the capabilities to manufacture over 120 million doses to begin with and shall ramp up depending on the demand. Our focus right through the year is to encourage patients with access to critical medicines, diagnostics and other medical essentials in an affordable way to resist COVID-19, which will continue to be an integral factor in our vaccine launch as well,” Patel said.
In September, billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates said that India’s willingness to play a’big role’ in fabricating COVID-19 vaccine and also to provide to other developing countries will be a critical role in containing the pandemic globally.
Recently, Bharat Biotech chairman and managing director Krishna Ella said that people who are infected should also have a vaccine, and India is well prepared concerning the logistics for the vaccine supply as it has an extremely robust immunisation system.
Joining hands in efforts to help with the availability of the vaccine, Wockhardt, in early December, said it’s in discussions with a number of global COVID-19 vaccine developers to supply drug substance as well as fill and finish production facilities to them.
“2021 will be a year of transformative measures that were set into motion across the industry. Resilience-strengthening efforts through facets like digital transformation, procuring manufacturing and supply chains, will continue,” Cipla president and global CFO Kedar Upadhye stated.
According to the World Health Organisation, the first human cases of COVID-19, the disease brought on by the novel coronavirus, subsequently named SARS-CoV-2 were first reported by officials in Wuhan City in China, in December 2019.
