Hope to launch Covovax vaccine by June 2021: SII CEO Adar Poonawalla

Serum Institute of India’s (SII’s) chief executive officer Adar Poonawalla said on Saturday his company is hopeful of launching Covovax, a vaccine against the Covid-19 virus which has been developed in partnership with Novavax, by June this year. Poonawalla also said SII has applied to start domestic trials of Covovax, which was found to be 89.3% effective in a UK trial.

 Poonawalla took to Twitter to say that the SII’s partnership with Novavax for a coronavirus vaccine has given excellent efficacy results. “Our partnership for a COVID-19 vaccine with @Novavax has also published excellent efficacy results. We have also applied to start trials in India. Hope to launch COVOVAX by June 2021!” he tweeted.

The Novavax vaccine also requires two doses, like the other vaccines being administered to the most vulnerable groups. NVX-CoV2373 contains a full-length, prefusion spike protein made using Novavax’ recombinant nanoparticle technology and the company’s proprietary saponin-based Matrix-M adjuvant.

 Novavax said it started making new versions of its vaccine to protect against emerging virus variants in early January and expects to select ideal candidates for a booster in the coming days. The company said it plans to initiate clinical testing of these new vaccines in the second quarter of this year.

The Pune-based firm has produced the AstraZeneca Covishield vaccine, which is co-developed by the University of Oxford and British-Swedish company AstraZeneca. The Centre has purchased 11 million doses of the vaccine, also known as Covishield in India.

India started its mass inoculation programme against Covid-19 on January 16 and around 3 crore healthcare and frontline workers are the first in line to receive the shot. Since the beginning of the pandemic, SII has manufactured and stockpiled around 40 million doses of Covishield “at risk”.