Time for India to start exports to help lower-income nations: SII's Adar Poonawalla
SII chief executive officer Poonawalla says India must now resume exports of Covid-19 vaccines to build on its position and help under-served regions, particularly before considering booster doses
Nearly nine of every 10 Covid-19 vaccine doses given to people in India have been of Covishield made by Serum Institute of India (SII) in Pune. The company’s contribution has been a reflection of its position as the world’s largest vaccine maker by volume as well as India’s position as ‘the pharmacy of the world’. In an interview with HT, SII chief executive officer Adar Poonawalla says India must now resume exports to build on its position and help under-served regions, particularly before considering booster doses. Edited excerpts:
India has now administered one billion Covid-19 vaccines; what do you have to say about the journey so far?
The first milestone was finding the right partner and the right vaccine in terms of technology and potential efficacy. We have been incredibly fortunate and lucky to have Oxford and AstraZeneca as partners. After that came execution challenges, like getting funding, building facilities, going through permissions and the approvals -- [after] all those milestones, we were licensed in India on January 3rd. We were approved by the WHO (World Health Organization) in February, which was another key milestone because that meant we could export to other nations. And in March-April, we partnered with the government to build capacity and we succeeded and now are at 220 million a month.
Covishield continues to remain the mainstay of India’s Covid vaccination programme; did you expect this?
I feel relieved that it all worked out; the blood and sweat my team, my workers and I put through for the last one-and-a-half years. It is a validation that all this effort was worth it. I feel relieved and happy that India is safe in terms of its vaccine supplies security and going forward, you’ve got other Indian manufacturers who will scale up as well.
What about vaccine exports; how soon do you see it happening?
It’s time actually for India to start exporting and look at getting back to being the pharmacy of the world. The Covax facility and the lower income countries, particularly the African continent is where I am really looking forward to contributing. This should happen now in November and December and more so as we go into January, February, (quarter one of 2022), by when India will have reached two doses for all these beneficiaries we have today.
What’s your take on booster doses?
There is a scientific argument and there’s an ethical argument; the scientific argument still says that if you are the vulnerable and elderly, then yes may be after a few months you could take a third dose. The ethical and equitable argument is that there are many cases in the world where everyone should get first two doses before we even think and talk about the third dose. In Africa only 3% are covered, and even in India, everyone should get two doses before we get to talk about a booster.
Have you made any profits?
Of course, we have. We have worked with the government to come to a price where there’s some basic profit, which is sustainable because you have to be able to re-invest. Otherwise, how else am I going to be able to make factories and create jobs? In fact, they [the government] were very particular that you must make a sustainable profit otherwise you cannot re-invest and scale up
Is the pressure off somewhat now?
There were times when there was stress but now we are in a very relaxed situation as everyone understands and everyone has what they wanted and we performed; in fact, surpassed the promises we made of producing a billion doses by 2021. The pressure in some sense is still there because there is a long way to go still. I don’t want to rest until we have given billions of doses to the world, and launched some of my other vaccines, including Covovax for children, which we hope to launch by the first quarter of 2022.
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