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By Manas Mishra
PUNE, India (Reuters) – The chief executive of the world’s largest vaccine maker, Serum Institute of India, said the company has ramped up production ahead of the rollout in the coming years of vaccines against diseases such as malaria and dengue fever, reusing used materials. to make vaccines. COVID-19 vaccines.
As COVID production shrinks as demand declines, the company is using those facilities to manufacture its new vaccines, which it says will increase overall production by 2. 5 billion doses, CEO Adar Poonawalla said in an interview.
Serum produces AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine, whose logo is called Covishield, in India, and also makes Novavax’s protein-based COVID shots.
It invested $2 billion at the height of the global fitness crisis to bring the production to life.
The company currently sells around 1. 5 billion vaccine doses a year and estimates a total production capacity of up to 4 billion doses.
“And it’s also vital because if a pandemic comes back in the future, we’ll be able to vaccinate the whole of India in 3 months, 3 or 4 months,” Poonawalla said.
The company is in talks with other countries and governments to use the facilities in case of future outbreaks, he said, but provided more details about the discussions.
Poonawalla said Serum has the capacity to manufacture 100 million doses of its malaria vaccine and could increase it depending on demand. It has already produced 25 million doses ahead of its launch in the coming months.
This ancient mosquito-borne disease still kills more than half a million people a year, mostly young children in sub-Saharan Africa.
Poonawalla said Serum would focus on exporting its vaccines, such as the malaria vaccine, to other countries, rather than signing generational change agreements.
Serum is also testing a single-dose vaccine against dengue, another painful and deadly mosquito-borne disease that he developed based on studies conducted through the U. S. National Institutes of Health. U. S.
This vaccine is in the initial or mid-term testing phase in India and the company plans to complete complex trials within the next three years, the CEO said.
Japan’s Takeda Pharmaceutical also makes a dengue vaccine, which is available in countries such as Indonesia and Thailand, as well as Argentina and Brazil, which have recently faced a primary outbreak and a lack of vaccine.
Others, such as Indian Immunologicals, are also developing vaccines against the disease.
(Reporting by Manas Mishra in Pune, India; editing by Leslie Adler)
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