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Covid-19 vaccine by year end, but not rushing in: Serum CEO, Adar Poonawalla
Adar Poonawalla, chief executive officer (CEO) of the Serum Institute of India, India’s largest vaccine producer by volume, said, “We are hopeful that our Covid-19
Adar Poonawalla, chief executive officer (CEO) of the Serum Institute of India, India’s largest vaccine producer by volume, said, “We are hopeful that our Covid-19 vaccine candidate will be ready by the year-end and we do not want to rush in.”
Poonawalla’s remarks came on Tuesday, after the Indian Council of Medical Research’s (ICMR) announcement about launching a Coronavirus vaccine by August 15 has been met with much scepticism by the scientific and medical community in the country.
The Serum Institute has currently joined hands with the university of Oxford in the UK and US-based firm Codagenix, to produce a vaccine for Covid-19.
“Once the third phase is over we can give an update. Another Covid-19 vaccine candidate was rushed into the process and it was declared that the vaccine will come in earlier than anticipated, but we will make declarations only once the efficacy of the vaccine is ensured,” said Poonawalla.
He also added that Serum Institute could not rush into production of vaccines which have multiple phases that need to be followed to determine the efficacy.
Poonawalla was speaking at the launch of a testing machine manufactured by Mylab Discovery Solutions in Pune.
The compact XL-lab-in-a-box can perform tests, including the one for Covid-19 test, which are otherwise conducted in laboratories.
“The machine also seeks to minimise human intervention, thereby not only reducing human error, but also avoiding any exposure of technicians performing the procedure. The machine can test 32 samples and within one hour and prepare the PCR (polymerase chain reaction)-ready tube, which is further tested for the presence of the virus,” said Poonawalla.
Mylab recently partnered with Serum institute to scale production of Covid-19 test kits which take between three-to-four hours to deliver the results.
Although rapid antigen detection kits are used widely for instant results, the Rt-PCR tests are considered the standard when it comes to testing for any virus. The cost for the tests will remain at Rs 2,500 for each sample.
Redraw testing guidelines: Poonawalla
Adar Poonawalla called on the ICMR and the central government to come up with fresh guidelines for Covid-19 testing.
“If I want to test my entire staff of 500 people, I cannot do that because of the current restrictions of testing only symptomatic people, or the need for a doctor’s prescription. Indian manufacturers have come up with multiple testing kits. Mylab alone can produce two million testing kits a week, but currently not even half of them are being used because of the demand which is only as per the current ICMR guidelines. It is true that we are not testing enough. Many companies are reporting multiple cases within their units, but they cannot conduct tests,” he said.
