Serum Institute of India (SII), the largest Vaccine marker in the World has begun production of the Oxford COVID19 vaccine, ChAdOx1 under the brand name CovidShield. The company has taken the risk to start production even though the clinical trials are not completed.
According to Chairman Cyrus Poonawala, the company aims to produce 300 million doses of CovidShield by December 2020. Half of the doses will be supplied to India and the remaining to the poorer countries. If the clinical trials are a success, CovidShield will be launched in October 2020.
SII aims to produce 1 billion doses of the CovidShield by mid-2021, half of which would be for use in India. India may emerge as one of the world’s largest producers of the Oxford COVID19 vaccine. The company plans the Phase 3 trials with 4000-5000 patients in India.
The company is yet to decide about the pricing of the Vaccine but is planning to keep it under Thousand Rupees to ensure that it is an efficacious and affordable vaccine.