Next challenge, make vaccines work against new variants: Adar Poonawalla

In an exclusive interview with Business Standard, Serum Institute of India (SII) CEO, Adar Poonawalla said that making the vaccines work against new variants of Covid-19 and require scientists to work on the same. He said that the other challenge would be to ensure a stable global supply chain of raw materials for vaccine manufacturers. Further, he added that the third challenge is of vaccine certificates, wherein all vaccines approved by WHO must be accepted. Else, travellers would be harassed for no reason he added.

This comes after SII had supplied more than 90% of India’s vaccine doses and played a critical role in India touching the milestone of 1 billion jabs.

There is enough buffer stock now

Poonawalla said that the company has chosen only certain technologies which would be easier to scale up and at the same time cut down the production time. He further said that the company has taken a lot of risk and planned the execution in early 2020.

When asked about the pipeline products sacrificed for making Covishield, he said that during the second Covid wave of the pandemic, he and the central government worked very closely and with their financial support in the form of advances, the company has rejigged their facilities dedicated for other new vaccines, it was planning to launch.

A lot of sacrifices were made to put the company’s focus on Covishield, he said. He also added that it was the licensed vaccine and the need of the hour.

Also, on the subject of buffer stock, there is a 2-3 week buffer between stocks and the actual position, he said. He also added that the government is in a very secure position today, where they have got weeks of extra buffer versus the current vaccination rate at present.