Mumbai: Serum Institute of India (SII) will make the COVID-19 vaccine available for $3 per dose to low and middle-income countries (LMIC) including India.
The world’s largest vaccine manufacturer by volume, SII has set this price as part of a new partnership with GAVI, The Vaccine Alliance and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, reported The Economic Times (ET).
SII will manufacture and deliver up to 100 million doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford and Novavax COVID-19 vaccines (that are currently being developed) for India and 92 other LMICs. These are likely to be available as early as first half of 2021, ET quoted the company as saying.
“The rampant spread of the virus has rendered the entire world in an unimaginable halt of uncertainty. And to ensure maximum immunization coverage and contain the pandemic, it is important to make sure that the most remote and poorest countries of the world have access to affordable cure and preventive measures. Through this association, we seek to ramp up our constant efforts to save the lives of millions of people from this dreadful disease,” ET reported Adar Poonawalla, CEO of SII as saying.
In an interview with ET last week Seth Berkley, CEO of GAVI said that the organisation is in talks with several other Indian vaccine companies for a similar tie-up like the one it has entered into with SII-AZ.
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