Earlier this year., India’s Drugs Controller General granted permission to Pune Maharashtra-based Serum Institute of India to supply over 32,000 doses of its COVID-19 jab Covovax under the brand name Nuvaxovid to the U.S.
Covovax is manufactured through technology transfer from Novavax, an American Company and is approved by the European Medicines Agency for conditional marketing authorization.
It was granted emergency use listing by the World Health Organization on December 2017, 2020. In August 2020, Novavax Inc announced a license agreement with Serum Institute for the development and commercialization of NVX-CoV2373, its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, in India and low and middle-income countries.
Also, in September this year, India’s drug regulator allowed the export of 200,000 of the first, produced-in-India, vaccine against malaria. This vaccine was designed at the Jenner Institute, University of Oxford, which collaborated with the Institute in 2020 to manufacture and develop the shot for large- scale supply.
The vaccine trial results on 409 children in Nanoro, Burkina Faso, showed that three initial doses followed by a booster after one year gives up to 80 per cent protection against the disease.
The Serum Institute, along with Oxford University, is conducting advanced-stage trials in African countries.
