The Serum Institute of India (SII) had to postpone HPV vaccine production for two years due to the COVID pandemic, and will start offering small quantities of the dose to the Indian government in early 2023, a senior official said.
Exports will have to wait until 2024, lead executive Adar Poonawalla told reporters in Pune on Thursday night, adding that the company wants to build a production scale of more than 150 million for this.
HPV vaccines prevent certain types of cervical cancer.
SII is the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer that rushed with the production of several Covid vaccines at its facility located here once the vaccine was approved for use.
“The HPV facility has been used through the Covid pandemic vaccines. That’s why we had to postpone the wider launch until next year,” said M. Poonawalla, speaking on the sidelines of an event.
“We will manufacture a very small one and launch it with the Indian government in the first quarter of next year. Followed by a capacity of 70 million doses that can pass up to 150-200 million doses the following year,” he added.
Poonawalla said the company already has approval from India’s Comptroller General of Medicines for domestic use of HPV vaccines, adding that once domestic use begins, it hopes to get prequalified from the World Health Organization.
The company has already made representations to the World Health Organization (WHO) and expects to start exporting to UNICEF, the Gavi vaccine alliance and African countries until 2024, when it has developed its capacity.
He added that India’s vaccination program will place many orders.
“We are only a year later than I would have liked to be in terms of capacity,” he said, adding that in 2023 it will start with a capacity of 20 million doses to be delivered to the Indian government.
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“We used the original HPV vaccine construction for covovax. Therefore, we had no selection of the pandemic. There were so many other vaccines like dengue and so many advances that were postponed for two years,” he said.
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed. )
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