As most of you know, or teams at Serum Institute of India have been putting their might behind the fight against covid-19. With our Govt, Health Ministry and ICMR’s support, and the carefully constructed regulatory approach, we should be able to ramp up our efforts. Adar
#AdarPoonawalla talks to
@shereen.bhan and
@CNBCTV18India about the latest developments on this front. Key takeaways:
We’re working in tandem with the Oxford vaccine project, with Sarah Gilbert and Adrian Hill. Sarah is a Professor of Vaccinology at the University of Oxford in the UK, and a leading scientist at the university's Jenner Institute, and Adrian is Director of the Jenner Institute
SII will begin manufacturing vaccines, in anticipation of the clinical trials succeeding
If the clinical trials are successful, SII should be able to make the vaccines available as early as 2-3 weeks from that point on. For context, the minimum turn-around time projected by other developers is 12-18 months as
@shereen.bhan and rightly points out,
If the clinical trials in the UK and India (which should start soon) are successful, and its safety and efficacy is proven, only then will they be available by October or November
The Oct/Nov release is only possible if we produce at our expense and risk, by the end of May — a challenge we have taken on in the interest of public health
The attempt will be to target 2-5 million doses on a monthly basis, in which case we should have a decent amount by Sept/Oct
We’re taking this risk at the cost of other vaccines, which have been put on hold temporarily, to focus on this; dedicating one of our existing units for this purpose.