Coronavirus Vaccine May Be Ready by October
Serum Institute of India plans to start production of the COVID-19 vaccine and hopes to bring it to the market by October in India.
COVID-19 is rapidly spreading in the country and till date there is no vaccine for it yet. Oxford University is researching on making a vaccine for Covid – 19. Serum Institute of India (SII), Pune has partnered with Oxford University on this project. 6 other companies have partnered with Oxford to manufacture the vaccine.
SII CEO Adar Poonawalla said trials for the vaccine in India will start in 2-3 weeks. If all goes well, they are hoping to start producing 5 million vaccines per month and sell it in the market by October 2020. After 6 months, they hope to manufacture 10 million a month. Poonawala said that SII has funded the manufacturing of the vaccines all by themselves. Currently, no other company is involved.
Building a new lab for the COVID-19 vaccine would have taken around 2-3 years. This is why the vaccines will be made at their labs in Pune. He also mentioned that SII had earlier collaborated with Oxford University for the malaria vaccine and that the scientists at Oxford University are one of the best. The SII are closely working with the ICMR and are working to get approvals from the government. He said that if SII creates the vaccine they will not patent it. He said that he hopes whichever company makes the vaccine does not patent it as the world needs billions of dosages quickly.
