Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer has announced that the Oxford COVID-19 vaccine should be available for healthcare workers and elderly people by around February 2021 and by April for the general public, and will be priced at a maximum of Rs. 1,000 for two necessary doses for the public, depending on the final trial results and regulatory approvals. Adar Poonawalla, Chief Executive Officer, Serum Institute of India unveiled this information at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit on Thursday. He also stated that probably by 2024, every Indian will get vaccinated. “It will probably take two or three years for every Indian to get inoculated, not just because of the supply constraints but because you need the budget, the vaccine, logistics, infrastructure and then, people should be willing to take the vaccine. So these are the factors that lead up to being able to vaccinate 80-90 percent of the population. It will be 2024 for everybody, if willing to take a two-dose vaccine, to be vaccinated,” stated Adar Poonawalla.

Talking about the price of the vaccine Adar stated that the vaccine Covishield will be available at around Rs. 500- R. 600 per dose in the private market, with an MRP of around Rs. 1,000 for the two necessary doses. “Government of India will be getting it at far cheaper, probably around $3-4 because they’ll be buying very huge volumes of hundreds of millions of doses. So they’ll get the access to the price which is similar to what COVAX has got, which is $3 and the general public probably have to pay around Rs. 500 - 600,” said Adar Poonawalla.

It will be 2024 for everybody, if willing to take a two-dose vaccine, to be vaccinated

The world’s largest vaccine manufacturer by volume is in a pact with the Co-Developer of the vaccine, British firm AstraZeneca plc. for manufacturing of about 1 billion doses of the vaccine and its distribution and sale in India and other low and middle-income countries.

Speaking about the efficacy of the vaccine, Adar stated that the Oxford-Astrazeneca vaccine is so far proving to work very well even in elderly people, which was a concern earlier. “It has induced a good T-cell response, which is an indicator for your long-term immunity and antibody response but then again, time will only tell if these vaccines are going to protect you in the long term. Nobody can answer that for any of the vaccines today,” asserted Adar Poonawalla.

He also said that the company plans to apply for an emergency use authorization from the Drug Controller General of India V.G. Somani for its vaccine next month, and get the regulatory green light in January. The process, however, is contingent on robust efficacy data from Astrazeneca’s trials in the UK, which is expect by the end of this month. “We’re basing the assumption of an emergency licensure based on positive UK results. So these are the caveats. That if we get good UK result end of November or early December, we apply for an emergency licensure use. So you have the vaccine for the vulnerable populations by January or February. And then by March or April, for the general public,” Poonawalla said, adding that if any of these milestones get delayed, then Serum’s own plans could be delayed.

If things go according to the plan, the company plans to have around 300-400 million shots of the two-dose vaccine ready by March or April, he said. The company is currently expanding its capacity for manufacturing the vaccine to around 100 million doses from around 50-60 million doses currently.