Zydus Cadila Ltd. said it plans to produce up to five crore doses of its DNA-based Covid-19 vaccine by January 2022. The pricing, however, will be decided only in the next couple of weeks.
The Ahmedabad-based pharmaceuticals firm will start producing one crore doses per month of the ZyCov-D vaccine from October, Managing Director Sharvil Patel said in a press conference. "We hope to supply three to five crore doses by the end of January 2022."
The Indian government, in an affidavit to the Supreme Court in June, had projected five crore doses of Zydus' vaccine by the end of December. The company said it would enhance capacity as yields improve.
India's drug regulator gave emergency use authorisation to the three-dose vaccine on Friday, making it the sixth addition to the country's inoculation programme against the coronavirus pandemic. The vaccine, which can be injected with the company's own needle-free system, will be administered to all above 12 years of age. This is the first vaccine shot in India allowed for the population younger than 18 years of age.
Here are the other highlights from Zydus Cadila's press conference:
Will work closely with regulators to work on the pricing and modalities of ZyCoV-D doses.
Will have a clear answer on pricing in the next 1-2 weeks.
Expect to start delivering doses to the government by the start of September.
Large part of the capacity will be delivered to the central government, which will then get distributed to the states.
Will also provide the opportunity to the private market to get access to the vaccine.
ZyCoV-D can be stored at 2-8 degree Celsius and has shown stability at 25 degree Celsius for at least three months.
This will allow for easy transportation and storage and reduce cold chain challenges.
Have invested around Rs 500 crore so far; will have to make further investments.
Largely funded the vaccine development through internal resources.
ZyCov-D vaccine, developed domestically by Zydus Cadila in partnership with the Department of Biotechnology, had shown an efficacy of 66.6%, according to the interim results from phase-3 clinical trials.
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