Delhi-based pharma major Mankind Pharma on Wednesday announced a collaboration with OpenAI to institutionalise artificial intelligence (AI) across its value chain, making it one of the first few Indian pharmaceutical companies to fully integrate advanced AI into its core operations.
Call centres, once the engine room of India's BPO exports, are evolving too. Depending on the complexity, 30 to 50 per cent of voice and chat volumes are now handled by conversational AI.
After Chennai, it is Coimbatore, Madurai, and Tiruchirappalli, that are emerging as manufacturing hubs. Coimbatore is India's top Tier-II city in terms of the number of GCCs, according to a report by Cushman & Wakefield.
At $37 per dose, the Pfizer vaccine is much more expensive compared to $3 per dose for the Covishield.
The Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine provides less immunity against Omicron than from other coronavirus variants, according to a lab study that suggests a booster may still provide good protection.
Pfizer's chief executive Dr Albert Bourla told the BBC that he is of the view that annual vaccinations would be needed to maintain a "very high level of protection" against the deadly disease that has claimed over five million lives across the world.
After Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal claimed that Mumbai has received a bid from Pfizer in response to its COVID-19 vaccine procurement tender, Pfizer issued a statement clarifying that it has made no such bid.
More than 200 million Pfizer doses have been administered in the US, and hundreds of millions more worldwide, since December.
Pfizer sought to participate in the Subject Expert Committee consultations towards an emergency use authorisation for its Covid-19 vaccine. However, the company representatives have been unable to participate in the meetings because of extremely short notices of a few hours or less and time-zone limitations.
The South African Health Products Authority (SAHPRA) on Wednesday approved the use of Pfizer's Comirnaty COVID-19 vaccine after BioNTech and Pfizer announced that two doses of their vaccine may not be enough to protect against the Omicron variant.
Pfizer and Moderna said they won't give us vaccine and will directly talk to the Centre," Kejriwal told reporters.
Earlier in April, Pfizer said that it had offered a not-for-profit price for its vaccine for the government immunisation programme in India and it remains committed to continuing engagement with the government to make the vaccine available in India.
'Pfizer India has submitted an application on December 4 to the DCGI seeking emergency use authorization for its COVID-19 vaccine in India'
United States Pharma giant Pfizer is in the final stages of an agreement with India to supply anti-COVID-19 vaccines, Chief Executive Officer Dr Albert Bourla said on Tuesday, observing that the domestically manufactured vaccines would be the backbone of vaccinating the Indian people.
Providing data, it said UK's Public Health England has reported high vaccine effectiveness (87.9 per cent) against the B.1.617.2 variant, most reported in India, in an observational study (concluded on May 22, 2021).
Researchers at Public Health Scotland and the University of Edinburgh, UK, found that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine offered better protection against the Delta variant compared to the Oxford-AstraZeneca preventive, known as Covishield in India.
According to The New York Times, this move means that many highly vulnerable people will begin receiving the vaccine within days. It further called the authorisation by the FDA as a 'historic turning point' as the US death toll from the Wuhan-originated virus nears 300,000.
An expert panel of the country's drugs regulatory authority had recommended against granting such approval to the firm at this stage just two days ago, officials said.
The researchers analysed 2580,021 test results from nose and throat swabs taken from 384,543 participants aged 18 years or older between December 1, 2020 and May 16, 2021.
The study also shows that levels of these antibodies that are able to recognise and fight the virus are lower with increasing age, and that levels decline over time, providing additional evidence in support of plans to deliver a booster dose to vulnerable people.
The Pfizer vaccine has already been approved for the public in the United Kingdom and, Canada.
According to the organisers, based on the feedback from the NOCs and NPCs, it is expected that a significant proportion of Games participants will have been vaccinated before arriving in Japan. The new MoU adds to these efforts.
Trump had said that he worked on removing a large number of bureaucratic obstacles to fast-track development and approval of a vaccine.
The official expressed hope on the success of the five vaccines that are under different phases of trial in the country.
As COVID-19 cases in China continue to rise, Beijing will soon start distributing Pfizer's Covid-19 drug Paxlovid to the community health centres in forthcoming days, CNN reported citing state media on Monday.
The vaccine arrives at a critical moment for the US. Hospitalisations due to COVID-19 hit record highs for the seventh day in a row on Saturday.
Health officials have previously raised the possibility that the public may need booster COVID-19 shots.
The central government is importing COVID-19 vaccines and is in talks with COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson, Union Minister of State for Home Affairs G Kishan Reddy said.
Pfizer Inc and its group companies filed a petition in a US court against Aurobindo Pharma Ltd and Dr Reddy's Laboratories alleging that the Indian drug-makers were planning separately to come out with generic versions of its blockbuster multi-billion dollar drug Ibrance (palbociclib) before expiration of its patent.
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.
The company has developed detailed logistical plans and tools to support effective vaccine transport, storage, and temperature monitoring. Sohini Das and Ruchika Chitravanshi report.
Pfizer can show the FDA approval to the Indian regulator and present a case that based on whatever data submitted, the US regulator has granted a full marketing nod, says Sohini Das.
The novel coronavirus has mutated before, and both companies say they've found that their vaccines worked against other variations of the virus.
Pfizer and BioNTech said they have concluded phase 3 study of their mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine candidate BNT162b2, meeting all primary efficacy endpoints.
After discussion with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the companies recently elected to drop the 32-case interim analysis and conduct the first interim analysis at a minimum of 62 cases, the statement said.
India's first mRNA platform-based vaccine will remain stable at 2-8 degrees Celsius while Pfizer-BioNTech's vaccine needs minus 70 degrees Celsius and Moderna vaccine can remain stable for six months at minus 20 degrees Celsius, reports Sohini Das.
"Pfizer's proposal would dramatically dilute AstraZeneca shareholders' exposure to our unique pipeline and would create risks around its delivery," Chairman Leif Johansson said.
The results were the same in seniors, with a median age of 76, and caregivers, with a median age of 48, and old alike, according to the researchers.
Biden previously told Jake Tapper of CNN that he would be "happy to" take the COVID-19 vaccine once US infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci said it was safe and he would get the injection in a public setting to prove it.
Currently, the country is using two 'made-in India' jabs -- Covishield and Covaxin -- to inoculate its billion-plus population 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.
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