SII CEO urges US to lift raw material export ban to up Covid-19 vaccine production
NEW DELHI: Serum Institute of India (SII) CEO Adar Poonawalla on Friday said the US needs to lift its embargo on raw material exports to help ramp up vaccine production. SII is currently manufacturing anti-coronavirus vaccine Covishield, developed by Astrazeneca and Oxford University. The vaccine is not only being used in India, but exported to […]
Russia’s Sputnik vaccine approved for emergency use against Covid-19 in India: Health Ministry
NEW DELHI: India’s drug regulator has granted permission for restricted emergency use of the Russian COVID-19 vaccine Sputnik V with certain conditions, the Union Health Ministry announced on Tuesday, while stating that Dr Reddy’s Laboratories will import the vaccine for use in the country. The approval by the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) paves […]
India approves Sputnik V vaccine against Covid-19, to produce 850 million doses annually: RDIF
NEW DELHI: The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) has said that India has become the 60th country to approve the use of Sputnik V against coronavirus and more than 850 million doses of the vaccine are going to be produced in the country annually. The Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) has registered the vaccine […]
Serum Institute of India require around Rs 3,000 crore to ramp up vaccine production: Adar Poonawalla
NEW DELHI: Serum Institute of India (SII) would require around Rs 3,000 crore to ramp up production capacity for making vaccines for Covid-19, its CEO Adar Poonawalla said on Tuesday. “We need roughly Rs 3,000 crores which is not a small figure considering we have already spent thousands of crores. We have to find other […]
Pfizer withdraws emergency use bid of its COVID-19 vaccine in India
NEW DELHI: Pfizer Inc has withdrawn an application for emergency-use authorisation of its COVID-19 vaccine in India that it has developed with Germany’s BioNTech, the company told the Reuters news agency on Friday. The United States company, which was the first drugmaker to apply for emergency use authorisation of its COVID-19 vaccine in India, had […]
‘In public interest’: Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin recommended for emergency approval
NEW DELHI: The government of India on Saturday said that the expert panel of India’s drug regulator has recommended granting permission for restricted emergency use of the indigenously developed Covid-19 vaccine ‘Covaxin’ in “public interest as an abundant precaution.” The Subject Expert Committee of Central Drugs Standards Control Organisation had met on January 1 and […]
India allows import/export of COVID-19 vaccine without any value limitation
NEW DELHI: The government of India has allowed import and export of COVID-19 vaccines without any value limitation, in order to ensure speedy clearance and distribution. The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) has amended the regulations to facilitate the import/export of COVID-19 vaccines through courier, at locations where the Express Cargo Clearance […]
Moderna Covid-19 vaccine trial shows 94.1 per cent efficacy: Study
NEW YORK: US-based biotechnology company Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine demonstrated 94.1 per cent efficacy, showed results from the primary analysis of a phase-3 trial. The study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, provides evidence that the vaccine, mRNA-1273, can prevent symptomatic infection. The results are similar to the first interim analysis of the study […]
Russia to jointly produce Sputnik V vaccine for Covid-19 with India
NEW DELHI: Russian envoy to India Nikolay Kudashev on Monday said Moscow will jointly produce the Sputnik V vaccinefor COVID-19 along with New Delhi and it will be manufactured by Indian pharma major Dr Reddy’s Laboratories. “We are working very hard to fight COVID-19 together with India, and are now advancing to jointly produce Sputnik […]
EU regulator says Pfizer vaccine should be considered case by case for pregnant women
AMSTERDAM:The European drug regulator on Monday said the use of the COVID-19 vaccine jointly developed by U.S. company Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech on pregnant women should be considered case by case. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) does not have enough data from the companies’ clinical trials on the potential risks to pregnant women, […]
Concern among Muslims over halal status of COVID-19 vaccine
By VICTORIA MILKO JAKARTA:In October, Indonesian diplomats and Muslim clerics stepped off a plane in China. While the diplomats were there to finalize deals to ensure millions of doses reached Indonesian citizens, the clerics had a much different concern: Whether the COVID-19 vaccine was permissible for use under Islamic law. As companies race to develop […]
Global partnership COVAX secures 2 billion coronavirus vaccine doses
NEW DELHI: Global vaccine partnership COVAX has lined up almost two billion doses of existing and candidate COVID-19 vaccines for use worldwide, including 200 million doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine through an agreement between the Vaccine Alliance Gavi, the Serum Institute of India and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. COVAX, the global initiative to […]
After Pfizer, US Approves Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine
NEW DELHI: The US biotechnology company Moderna has announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) has authorized the emergency use of mRNA-1273, Moderna’s vaccine against COVID-19 in individuals 18 years of age or older. The Moderna approval comes exactly a week after the US Food and Drug Administration okay-ed a shot from Pfizer […]
Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine set to get clearance by year-end: Report
NEW DELHI: The Oxford University vaccine against COVID-19 being produced by AstraZeneca is likely to get regulatory approval from the UK’s independent regulator by the end of this year for a rollout to begin in early 2021, according to a UK media report. The Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency (MHRA), which had been formally tasked […]
Covid-19 vaccine had robust immune response in Phase 1 trial: Bharat Biotech
NEW DELHI: The interim findings of phase 1 clinical trial of Covid-19 vaccine Covaxin, indigenously developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the ICMR, showed that it was was well tolerated in all dose groups with no serious or adverse events. The vaccine induced robust binding and neutralising antibody responses which were comparable to those […]
Quarter of world may not get Covid-19 vaccine until 2022: Study
NEW YORK: In a major study, researchers have revealed that nearly a quarter of the world’s population may not have access to a Covid-19 vaccine until at least 2022. The findings, published in the journal The BMJ, suggest that the operational challenges of the global Covid-19 vaccination programme will be at least as difficult as […]