How A US Export Embargo Is Hurting The World During COVID-19 And Why Poonawalla Wants It Lifted

The world needs COVID-19 vaccines and in their millions or even billions right now to fight against the pandemic that has brought many countries to its knees.

While there have been some promising developments in the vaccine front, the drug makers are also facing difficulties in scaling up their production to meet the global demand.

AP

Lack of raw materials hurting

One of the reasons for this is the lack of raw materials, and the US is to be blamed for it.

In an effort to boost the COIVD-19 vaccine capacity of the US, President Joe Biden had invoked the Defence Act, under which export of raw material was restricted.

This has hurt, vaccine makers like the Serum Institute of India (SII), the world's largest drugmaker, which is currently manufacturing the Oxford AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine for India and around the world.

AFP

SII CEO Adar Poonawalla on Friday called upon the US administration to lift its embargo on raw material exports to help ramp up vaccine production.

"Respected @POTUS, if we are to truly unite in beating this virus, on behalf of the vaccine industry outside the U.S., I humbly request you to lift the embargo of raw material exports out of the U.S. so that vaccine production can ramp up. Your administration has the details," Poonawalla said in a tweet.

Respected @POTUS, if we are to truly unite in beating this virus, on behalf of the vaccine industry outside the U.S., I humbly request you to lift the embargo of raw material exports out of the U.S. so that vaccine production can ramp up. Your administration has the details. ??

¡ª Adar Poonawalla (@adarpoonawalla) April 16, 2021

Earlier, Poonawalla had said the unavailability of the raw materials, such as the specific medium needed to grow microorganisms, would prevent Serum Institute from scaling up the production of the vaccine developed by Novavax.

The company had been planning to make up to 40 million shots of the vaccine monthly.

It is not just SII that has been hit, another domestic drugmaker Bharat Biotech is also struggling to boost its output of Covaxin.

BCCL

Even Bharat Biotech facing shortage

Last month, the chairman and managing director of Bharat Biotech, Krishna Ella had said that the company is facing a shortage of some raw materials that are imported from the US and Sweden due to restrictions by those countries.

Though the export ban was to help the US, even American vaccine makers are feeling its heat.

Stephane Bancel, chief executive officer for Moderna, said Tuesday in an online event that export embargoes were also preventing American vaccine makers from exporting shots globally and resulting in shortages.

Reuters

Last month Bharat Biotech had entered into a deal with the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) to work on technologies and platforms for novel vaccines, drugs, and even raw materials.

With this, the company hopes it can develop an alternative for the adjuvant from Kansas-based ViroVax which it has been using for Covaxin.