DCGI grants permission to Serum Institute to manufacture its COVID-19 vaccine ‘Covishield’

Drugs Controller General of India grants permission to Serum Institute of India to manufacture its COVID-19 vaccine ‘Covishield’. The Pune-based company earlier stated that ChAdOx1 nCov-2019 coronavirus vaccine, developed by teams at the University of Oxford, has been shown to trigger a robust immune response in healthy adults aged 56-69 and those over 70 years of age.

According to reports, the manufacturer of the Covishield vaccine, plans to charge a special price of ₹200 per dose for the first 100 million shots that it supplies to the government. However, reportedly, the company plans to price the vaccine at ₹1,000 per dose in the open market, once it is allowed to do so by the government. Serum Institute is in the process of signing a larger contract with COVAX for 300 million-400 million doses of the vaccine.

This comes a day after the drug controller approved the Oxford coronavirus vaccine and Bharat Biotech's Covaxin, making it India's first vaccines against the pandemic.DCGI VG Somani said both the drug firms have submitted data on their trial runs and both have been granted permission for "restricted use".

Prime Minister Narendra Modi termed the approvals as a 'decisive turning point' in the fight against the novel coronavirus and said, "It would make every Indian proud that the two vaccines that have been given emergency use approval are made in India! This shows the eagerness of our scientific community to fulfil the dream of an Aatmanirbhar Bharat, at the root of which is care and compassion."

The Serum Institute of India, the world's largest vaccine manufacturer, has tied up with AstraZeneca to manufacture Covishield.

Covaxin has been indigenously developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).