Serum Institute of India’s CEO Adar Poonawalla says his organization is hoping to launch a new Covid-19 vaccine every quarter to help combat the virus, as the group seeks to ramp up its production capacity by the end of the year.
Speaking at the Reuters Next conference, Poonawalla revealed the organization’s mission to help India fight the spread of the virus, stating that it is currently in the process of researching two more potential candidates for the coronavirus vaccine.
With new strains of the virus being identified, Poonawalla is hoping that Serum Institute’s approach to vaccine production and distribution will not just combat this pandemic, but also help to prevent future outbreaks.
Currently, Serum Institute has an annual capacity of 1.5 billion doses. The aim is to increase that figure within the next 12 months, to more than 2.5 billion doses per year.
In order to meet the necessary demand, Serum Institute will be partnering with Novavax Inc to manufacture its vaccines in its native country of India, as well across the world. This follows the early announcement of a partnership between Serum Institute and GAVI and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to work on speeding up the production and distribution of vaccines.
While India is not experiencing the same spike in cases that other countries are currently fighting, the nation has been hit hard by the virus, recording 10.5 million confirmed cases and 151,529 fatalities since the start of the pandemic, according to the World Health Organisation.
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