Pfizer Ready To Supply 5 Cr Vaccines To India This Year But They Have Conditions

As India is struggling to keep its COVID-19 vaccination drive going amid the acute shortage of the two domestically made doses and the limited supply of the imported Sputnik V jabs, there is some good news for the country.

American pharma giant Pfizer has reportedly made its proposal to supply its COVID-19 vaccines to India.

BCCL

According to a report in The Economic Times, Pfizer has sought a firm pre-order along with advance payment for supplying COVID-19 vaccines to India on the same lines as other countries which have opted to procure vaccines from the company.

The company, in its meetings with the top officials in India has assured that it will share latest technology needed for co-production if the deal were to materialise, including research and modifications to cope with variants of virus as they evolve.

A PTI report said that Pfizer is ready to offer 5 crore shots in 2021 itself but it wants significant regulatory relaxations including indemnification.

File

1 cr doses by July

The company has promised 1 crore doses in July, 1 crore in August, 2 crore in September and 1 crore in October and made it clear that it will deal only with the Government of India and payment for vaccines will have to be made by GOI to Pfizer India.

Earlier, Punjab and Delhi which were trying to procure the vaccines on their own were told by both Pfizer and Moderna that they won't be able to supply the doses as the companies only deal with central governments.

Meanwhile, it has been reported that Moderna has told the Indian government that it does not have surplus vaccines to share in 2021, and supply will only be possible in 2022.

Reuters

Single-dose COVID vaccine launch by Moderna next year?

Moderna is eyeing to launch a single-dose COVID-19 vaccine in India next year and is in talks with Cipla among other Indian firms.

Currently, the country is using two "made-in India" jabs Covishield and Covaxin and has administered 20 crore doses since launching the world's largest vaccination drive in mid-January. A third vaccine, Russian-made Sputnik V, has been approved by the government and is being used on a smaller scale at present.

With the vaccine drive not able to keep up pace with the demand, last month the Indian government had relaxed norms for foreign-made vaccines.

Agencies

This means that the pre-condition for foreign manufacturers to undertake phase 2 and phase 3 clinical trials in India for those vaccines that have already been granted approvals by relevant regulatory bodies in the US, the European Union, the United Kingdom and Japan as well as by the World Health Organisation will be waived off.