The medical devices, which have been in high demand during the Covid-19 pandemic, will now see a drop in prices, as the earlier margins were up to 709 per cent for some of these products.
SII would be scaling up its AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine manufacturing capacity to 200 million doses a month from 100 million a month now, reports Sohini Das.
India conceding ground to bring only top 100 digital companies like Google, Facebook, and Netflix into the global taxation pact may have revenue implications. This will mean that New Delhi will have to withdraw the contentious 2 per cent equalisation levy on e-commerce operators by 2023. This may have revenue implications for India, experts pointed out, as the equalisation levy has a much lower annual revenue threshold of Rs 2 crore (euro 0.2 million) as against euro 20 billion agreed by 130 countries at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). India, along with other developing countries, was pitching for at least euro 1 billion threshold to cover at least 5,000 global entities. India collected Rs 2,057 crore from the equalisation levy in 2020-21, an 85 per cent growth over Rs 1,136 crore in the previous fiscal.
'From the tiniest to mid-level organisations and even some at the lower end of the large-scale ones would say that computerisation and the extensive documentation and regulatory requirements for GST have made the compliance process worse in many cases.'
Three entities are at the centre of this controversy: The Brazilian government, Bharat Biotech and a Singapore-based company called Madison Biotech.
However, before the Moderna and Pfizer messenger ribonucleic acid (or mRNA) vaccines come to India via this route, the legalities around the indemnity clause will have to be settled, reports Sohini Das.
A June 11 survey by cLocalCircles across 299 districts puts overall vaccine hesitancy levels at 18 per cent, with 11 per cent of the respondents saying they were not convinced if the currently available vaccines would protect them against the new strains; and 5 per cent said they do not plan to take the vaccine at all.
'I have done enough work for many years.' 'This is a decision that many people at my age need to review.' 'I may become an exit example for people to study.'
By 2022, there is a plan to make an mRNA-technology vaccine, for which it has tied up with Canadian firm Providence Therapeutics.
'The key purpose of vaccination is to prevent hospitalisation, severe disease, and death.' 'All vaccines work equally, although mild disease cannot be prevented.'
We have applied for marketing authorisation to the EMA through AstraZeneca. We will not sell the vaccine in the EU, said a company source.
While Bharat Biotech's Covaxin is in trials among children already, Serum Institute of India will begin Novavax vaccine trials on children from July, whereas the Pfizer vaccine has been approved for adolescents in the United States; and Cadila Healthcare's ZyCoV-D has done trials on 12 year-olds and above already, reports Sohini Das.
865 million Indian adults require vaccination.
While virologists say theoretically the vaccine that works on Delta should work on the Delta Plus variant as well, more research is needed.
The Covid-19 vaccine demonstrated an overall 90.4 per cent efficacy in phase 3 clinical trials, reports Sohini Das
This could also be India's first vaccine for children aged 12 years and above as the company has conducted trials on the age group. The decision, however, lies with the regulator, reports Sohini Das
According to medical practitioners, the treatment is especially useful in controlling disease among those who have not received the vaccine or got only one shot and also the high-risk contacts of a patient.
Raches Ella, project lead, Covid-19 vaccines at Bharat Biotech said in a series of tweets that he was 'surprised' that media and researchers were drawing conclusions based on non-peer reviewed work.
'Almost 70 per cent production time of a vaccine is dedicated to quality control, which is done through several hundred tests.'
'I'll give it to the vaccine manufacturers without guarantees, take the payment in advance and give me the supplies.' 'The moment you give me one lot of supply, I'll give you more.'
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