COVID-19 vaccine: Serum Institute, Gates Foundation and GAVI collaboration to produce additional 10 crore doses for poorer countries

3 | FM Nirmala Sitharaman announces Rs 900 crore grant for COVID-19 vaccine research: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharman on Thursday announced a Rs 900 crore grant to the Department of Biotechnology for COVID-19 vaccine research. "We are providing Rs 900 crore for research and development of COVID-19 vaccine. This is being provided for covid suraksha mission, purely for R&D but this money goes to Department of Biotechnology for research purposes," she said. Sitharaman said the grant does not cover the actual cost of vaccine and distribution expenses, which will be made separately as and when the vaccine is available.

The Serum Institute of India (SII) on September 29 said that it aims to make an additional 10 crore doses of COVID-19 vaccine for low and middle income countries, as part of its tie-up with the Gates Foundation and Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance. With this, the collaboration of the three organisations will now produce a total of 20 crore vaccine doses for poorer nations.

Adar Poonawalla, CEO of Serum Institute of India, said, "The collaboration further bolsters up our fight against COVID-19! Through the avid support of Gavi and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, we will now manufacture and deliver up to an additional 100 million doses of immunogenic and safe-proven future COVID-19 vaccines to India and low- and middle-income countries in 2021."

Earlier in August, the Pune-based vaccine manufacturer had announced that in partnership with Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, it would accelerate the manufacture and delivery of up to 10 crore doses of COVID-19 vaccines for India and other low income countries by 2021. SII had set a ceiling price of $3 (approximately Rs 225) per dose.

This alliance would provide upfront capital to SII to help increase manufacturing capacity so that once a vaccine, or vaccines, gains necessary regulatory approvals, doses can be distributed at scale to low and middle income countries as part of the Gavi COVAX AMC mechanism.