Vaccine major Serum Institute of India on Saturday said it was a special day for the company with Prime Minister Narendra Modi visiting its facility in Pune to go into details on the manufacturing status of the coronavirus vaccine.
Modi visited Serum Institute of India on Saturday and interacted with the team at the Institute, an official release said. They shared details about their progress so far on how they plan to further ramp up vaccine manufacturing, it added.
Addressing a virtual presser, Serum Institute of India CEO Adar Poonawalla said, “Worldwide everybody is now dependent and is looking forward to the vaccines coming out in large volumes and at affordable price from India as everybody already knows that more than 50 to 60% of all vaccines are made in India.”
“With the Aatmanirbhar Bharat vision in mind we have built the largest pandemic level facility in Pune in our sister campus at Manjri”, and that was showcased also to the prime minister, he added.
About the discussion with the prime minister, he said: “We discussed the plan, the implementation plan which will happen only after the emergency use licence, that is granted based on the data that will have to be submitted. We are in the process of submitting that officially to the Drug Controller of India …”.
Serum Institute is conducting clinical trials of AstraZeneca-Oxford’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate in India.
Earlier in a tweet, Adar Poonawalla said; “Sri @narendramodi Ji, it was a great honour for you to have spared the time, to visit us here at @SerumInstIndia to discuss in detail, the complex challenges yet to come and review the vaccine production status. @PMOIndia”.
