India has launched two special category visa for international students intending to pursue higher education in academic institutions in the country.
Poonawalla said booster vaccines have no demand as there is general lethargy among people and also because they are fed up with the pandemic.
An FIR was launched against some unidentified persons for cheating the SII for more than Rs 1 crore, said the officials on Sunday.
The Drugs Controller General of India has approved the manufacture of this Sars-CoV-2 spike protein recombinant nano-particle vaccine for 'examination, test, and analysis', reports Sohini Das.
Vaccine major Serum Institute of India on Tuesday said the approval for the COVID-19 vaccine 'Covovax' would strengthen immunization initiatives across India and various lower and middle income countries across the world.
The Serum Institute of India (SII) had put in an application to the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) in October for grant of market authorisation of Covovax for restricted use in emergency situations.
The Serum Institute of India is the first Indian company to seek approval for the COVID-19 booster dose.
The development comes after Prakash Kumar Singh, the Director, Government and Regulatory Affairs at SII, informed the Union health ministry that the firm would be able to supply 20.29 crore doses of Covishied in the month of September.
Given the recurring outbreaks in the last five years, the government is considering domestic manufacturing of monoclonal antibodies for treating Nipah virus infections and is in talks with Serum Institute of India, report Shine Jacob and Sohini Das.
The move comes even as India's drug regulator has extended Covishield's shelf life from six to nine months from its manufacturing date.
SII has signed an agreement to manufacture the potential vaccine developed by Jenner Institute of Oxford University in collaboration with British-Swedish pharma company AstraZeneca.
An expert committee of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) on Wednesday sought additional safety and efficacy data for COVID-19 vaccine candidates of Serum Institute and Bharat Biotech, after deliberating upon their applications seeking emergency use authorisation for the shots, official sources said.
India currently does not have any XBB 1.5 variant-based vaccines available.
United Kingdom-headquartered pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca (AZ) has admitted that in 'very rare cases' its Covid vaccine can cause a blood clot related side effect but the causal link is unknown, according to court papers being quoted in the UK media.
Pharma giant AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine is being withdrawn worldwide after the company acknowledged for the first time in court documents that it can cause a rare and dangerous side effect, according to a report in the British newspaper The Telegraph.
The Bombay high court on Monday said content posted by two individuals and their organisations against vaccine manufacturing major Serum Institute of India (SII) was "prima facie defamatory" and directed them to delete it.
Serum Institute of India has urged Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya to consider reducing the gap between the second and the precaution dose of Covishield from the current nine months to three, in line with Centre's revised guidelines for officials on election duty, official sources said on Thursday.
According to CoWIN data, only 73 vaccination centres are currently active in India, of which 32 are government-run.
NCP president Sharad Pawar may be busy getting ready for the INDIA Opposition bloc meeting in Mumbai with other Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) constituents, but his close friend and industrialist Dr Cyrus Poonawalla has a piece of advice for the octogenarian leader.
Serum Institute of India (SII) CEO Adar Poonawalla on Wednesday said it has restarted manufacturing of Covid-19 vaccine Covishield amid rising numbers of cases of the virus infection.
Serum Institute of India (SII) and Bharat Biotech have also stopped producing the Covishield and Covaxin vaccines respectively.
Sources indicated that there were no fresh orders from the Government of India, and their supply commitments have ended as of March 31, reports Sohini Das.
SII has so far provided more than 170 crore doses of Covishield to the government for the national immunisation programme.
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.
Both manufacturers have sought funds in excess of Rs 150 crore under the department of biotechnology's Mission Covid Suraksha scheme. Announced last November, the scheme has an outlay of Rs 900 crore to help develop Covid vaccines, from the clinical development stage to setting up production sites.
Jadhav said the country should have followed the WHO guidelines and prioritised vaccination accordingly.
Poonawalla, who is in London, however, noted that the company is making every effort to enhance production of Covishield amid the second wave of COVID in the country.
'WHO issued an emergency use listing for Covovax, expanding the basket of WHO-validated vaccines against COVID-19. The vaccine is produced by the Serum Institute of India under licence from Novavax,' the world health body said in a tweet on Friday.
Adar Poonawalla said he was hopeful that Covovax, the Novavax vaccine made by SII, will be launched around October this year for adults and for children by the first quarter of next year, depending on DCGI approvals.
Russia's Sputnik V vaccine is currently being manufactured in India by Dr Reddy's Laboratories.
The Pune-based firm had submitted interim safety and immunogenicity data of phase 2/3 bridging clinical trial conducted in the country as well as interim clinical trial data of safety and efficacy from phase3 clinical trials conducted in the UK and the US along with its application.
We have applied for marketing authorisation to the EMA through AstraZeneca. We will not sell the vaccine in the EU, said a company source.
Adar Poonawalla said the real challenge lies in taking the vaccine to the "common man, to the vulnerable groups of people and to healthcare workers".
Serum's CEO, Adar Poonwalla, accompanied Pawar.
The Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) has granted permission to the Serum Institute of India (SII) to manufacture the Sputnik COVID-19 vaccine in India for examination, test and analysis with certain conditions, official sources said.
The parties intend to produce over 300 million doses of the vaccine in India per year.
An expert panel of India's Central Drug Authority on Tuesday recommended granting permission to Serum Institute of India (SII) for conducting phase 2/3 trials of Covid vaccine Covovax on children aged 2 to 17 years with certain conditions, official sources said.
'SII has started stockpiling the vaccine and now has roughly 40 million doses ready. It is using some of the capacities it had for under development products for the COVID-19 vaccine and by January we will have a capacity to make 100 million doses per month and a stockpile of 200 million doses.'
Giving the background on the decision to export vaccines, SII said, "In January 2021, we had a large stockpile of vaccine doses. Our vaccination drive had started successfully and the number of daily cases being recorded were at an all-time low."
"We have started the phase-III trials of the vaccine (candidate Covishield). We will administer dose to 150 to 200 volunteers," said Dr Muralidhar Tambe, Dean, Sassoon General Hospital.
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