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Covid-19: Indian firm seeks emergency authorisation of its vaccine

New Delhi - Serum Institute India CEO says authorisation of the first made in India vaccine Covishield will save countless lives

After Pfizer, Serum Institute India (SII) applied for the emergency use authorisation of its coronavirus vaccine Covishield in India, the company’s CEO Adar Poonawala announced on Twitter on Monday.

“As promised, before the end of 2020, Serum Institute India has applied for emergency use authorisation for the first made-in-India vaccine, COVISHIELD. This will save countless lives, and I thank the Government of India and Sri Narendra Modi ji for their invaluable support,” Poonawala tweeted.

The SII has applied to the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) seeking emergency use authorisation for its Covid-19 vaccine “Covishield” in the country.

This comes a day after Pfizer India sought a similar approval from India’s drug regulator for its coronavirus vaccine. “SII has applied for emergency use authorisation to DCGI. The application will be reviewed by the expert committee and after that final call will be taken,” a senior government official has confirmed.

The SII is the first indigenous company that has sought emergency approval for the vaccine developed along with global pharma giant AstraZeneca and Oxford University.The Pune-based company earlier stated that ChAdOx1 nCov-2019 coronavirus vaccine, developed by teams at the University of Oxford, has been shown to trigger a robust immune response in healthy adults aged 56-69 and those over 70 years of age.

After Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the company’s pandemic level facility in Pune last month, Poonawalla had said that indications suggest that the Central government may purchase 300-400 million doses by July 2021. He further said the SII has already produced 40-50 million doses of the vaccine per month, and the pharma giant is planning to stretch it up to 100 million doses per month by February.