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The Serum Institute of India (SII) will provide Saudi Arabia with 3 million AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine doses priced at $5.25 each in about a week on behalf of the British drugmaker, its chief executive told Reuters on Monday.
SII, the world’s biggest vaccine manufacturer, has partnered with AstraZeneca, the Gates Foundation and the Gavi vaccine alliance to create up to a billion doses for poorer countries.
The Indian company supplies doses on behalf of AstraZeneca but is also free to attack its own supply deals.
“We continue to support AstraZeneca wherever they need the support. We’re delighted to do so,” Chief Executive Adar Poonawalla told Reuters in an interview.
“But we have not been asked to supply any more goods for Europe since then that would mean supplies to Africa and India would suffer, and we certainly do not need that,” he said. “Once I satisfy that I can look at other, wealthier nations.
He explained the doses destined for Saudi Arabia will be shipped in a week or 10 days. SII is also supplying South Africa with 1.5 million doses at exactly the same price of $5.25 per on behalf of AstraZeneca.
“We have our hands full, in fact, with the volumes even we need to supply,” Poonawalla stated. “We have been on time and we are able to supply to all these nations.”
The pricing of the deal between South Africa and AstraZeneca has sparked some controversy as it is greater than the $3 a dose that South Africa and other countries in the continent are expected to pay for the vaccine under an African Union arrangement.
AstraZeneca has said it won’t benefit from the vaccine throughout the pandemic.
Brazil last week received two million doses of the vaccine from SII and Poonawalla said it also paid about $5 per dose.
Poonawalla explained that SII would increase creation of the AstraZeneca vaccine by 30% by the end of March from its current daily output of about 2.4 million doses, when the third and final facility making the shot comes online.
SII also plans to begin stockpiling a vaccine candidate from U.S. company Novavax Inc in a month or two, despite a fire that killed five people and ruined one of its plants from the western Indian city of Pune.
Poonawalla stated SII had no intention of partnering with companies such as Pfizer Inc whose COVID-19 vaccine has to be kept at about minus 70 Celsius (minus 94 Fahrenheit) as India currently lacks such facilities.
Pfizer, which developed the shooter with Germany’s BioNTech, told Reuters it would pursue its petition for India to approve the vaccine if the government committed to purchasing shots.
Pfizer was the first drugmaker to seek emergency use authorisation for its vaccine in India in early December but it has yet to be approved.
India’s drug regulator says Pfizer officials failed to attend subsequent meetings it had called. The U.S. drugmaker says its officials hadn’t been given enough notice.
