Serum Institute of India’s Chief Executive Officer Adar Poonawalla on Wednesday said the Oxford vaccine, which his company is producing, ma...
Serum Institute of India’s Chief Executive Officer Adar Poonawalla on Wednesday said the Oxford vaccine, which his company is producing, may be ready by December and the first batch of 100 million doses should be available by the second or third quarter of 2021. He told NDTV that the company may also apply for emergency use licence.
Serum’s Covishield, which is being developed at the Oxford University in the United Kingdom and licensed by international biopharma company AstraZeneca, is currently undergoing the final phase of clinical trials in India. The Serum institute has already produced over 20 lakh doses of the vaccine candidate for use in testing.
Poonawalla said he was hopeful about launching Covishield by January. “If we don’t go for an emergency license, our trials should be over by December and then we can maybe we can launch in India in January,” he said. But Poonawalla added that Serum’s plans are subject to the United Kingdom clinical trials that are “on the verge of being completed”.
“If the UK in the next two weeks were to unblind their study and share the data and be confident that it’s safe, then we can – after two-three weeks – apply to the Indian regulator to look at...
