SII to sell Covishield for Rs 1,000 per dose in private markets: Adar Poonawalla

The first 100 million doses of Covishield were sold only to the Government of India at a special price of Rs 200 because SII wanted to support the common man, the vulnerable, the poor, and healthcare workers, said SII CEO Adar Poonawalla.

Moneycontrol News

January 12, 2021 / 16:10 IST

Serum Institute of India (SII) will be selling Oxford-AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine - Covishield - at Rs 1,000 per dose in private markets, said Adar Poonawalla, Chief Executive Officer of SII, on Janaury 12.

He said the first 100 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine were sold only to the Government of India at a special price of Rs 200 because the vaccine maker wanted to support the common man, the vulnerable, the poor, and healthcare workers, ANI reported.

“To the Government of India, we will still maintain a very reasonable price, but it will be a little bit more than Rs 200 which is our cost price. So, we decided not to make any profit on the first 100 million doses, as we wanted to support the nation and the Government of India,” he said.

We've given a special price of Rs 200 for the first 100 mn doses only to GoI on their request, that we want to support common man, vulnerable, poor, healthcare workers. After that we'll be selling it at Rs 1000 in pvt markets: Adar Poonawalla, CEO-Owner, Serum Institute of India pic.twitter.com/EmKwGhevc2
— ANI (@ANI) January 12, 2021

Saying that the main challenge for the Pune-based pharma firm will be to “bring Covishield to everyone in the country”, the SII CEO said: “We make 70-80 million doses every month. Planning is underway to see how many will be given to India and foreign countries. The health ministry has made logistics plans. We also have partnership with private players for trucks, vans, and cold storages.”

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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SII to sell Covishield for Rs 1,000 per dose in private markets: Adar Poonawalla

The first 100 million doses of Covishield were sold only to the Government of India at a special price of Rs 200 because SII wanted to support the common man, the vulnerable, the poor, and healthcare workers, said SII CEO Adar Poonawalla.

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