SII manufacturing first batch of Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine Covovax, says Adar Poonawalla, hoping to launch by September this year.
In March, Poonawalla had announced that the clinical trials of the Covovax vaccine have started in India and the company expects to launch it by September this year
The first batch of Covovax, a COVID-19 vaccine developed by Novavax Inc, is being manufactured at the Serum Institute of India’s Pune facility, SII CEO Adar Poonawalla said on Friday.
Excited to witness the first batch of Covovax (developed by @Novavax) being manufactured this week at our facility in Pune. The vaccine has great potential to protect our future generations below the age of 18. Trials are ongoing. Well done team @seruminstindia! pic.twitter.com/K4YzY6o73A
— Adar Poonawalla (@adarpoonawalla) June 25, 2021
Earlier in August 2020, American vaccine company Novavax Inc had declared a license agreement with SII for the development and commercialization of NVX-CoV2373, its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, in low and middle-income countries and India.
In January this year, the Serum Institute had commenced the Covishield vaccine in India and entered into a collaboration with the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca to manufacture the vaccine.
He also said,“Excited to witness the first batch of Covovax (developed by @Novavax) being manufactured this week at our facility in Pune. The vaccine has great potential to protect our future generations below the age of 18. Trials are ongoing. Well done team @seruminstindia! (sic),” said SII CEO Adar Poonawalla in a Twitter post on Friday. The US biotechnology company Novavax’s protein-based vaccine, NVX-CoV2373, has confirmed 100% protection against moderate and severe disease, and 90.4% overall efficacy, in its Phase 3 trial.
The Serum Institute of India stated on Friday that it has begun the production of the first batch of Novavax’s Covid-19 vaccine, which will be locally manufactured under the brand name Covovax, calling it “a new milestone”.
The Centre, too, termed the vaccine efficacy trial promising.
“What we’re learning from data available in the public domain that this vaccine is very safe and highly effective,” said Dr VK Paul, member-health, Niti Aayog said earlier this month.
So far, three vaccines — Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin, the SII’s Covishield and Russia’s Sputnik V — have been cleared by the Indian government.
Adar Poonawalla (born 14 January 1981) is the chief executive officer (CEO) of Serum Institute of India.[1] Founded in 1966 by his father, Cyrus Poonawalla, it is the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer by the number of doses produced.