SII borrows money from banks to scale up Covishield production
By IANS |
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New Delhi, April 21 : To scale up production of its Covishield vaccine, the Serum Institute of India (SII) had borrowed money from banks instead of waiting for the government s aid to arrive.
The company assumed that the funding from the government will reach them very soon, probably by this week.
Covishield has been developed by the Oxford University and AstraZeneca, and manufactured by the Pune-based SII.
To boost India s vaccine production in wake of the huge surge in Covid-19 caseload, the government on Monday announced that it has given in-principle approval for credit to vaccine manufacturers, SII and Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech. The Union Finance Ministry has approved a sanction of Rs 3,000 crore credit for SII and Rs 1,500 crore to Bharat Biotech.
India’s shortage of Covid-19 vaccines that precludes immediate inoculation for all adults is rooted in the Narendra Modi government’s lack of funding for key vaccines under development and evaluation, experts have said.
The experts, who have tracked global vaccine efforts, said the Indian government’s lack of investments contrasted with the actions of many countries, including America and Britain, that provided advance funding to vaccine makers and signed purchase pacts with them.
The Centre had last November announced a Rs 900-crore project, coordinated by the Union science ministry’s department of biotechnology, for Covid-19 vaccines.
But none of this money went to either Covishield, the AstraZeneca vaccine produced by the Serum Institute of India at Pune, or Covaxin, the home-grown vaccine made by the Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech. Instead, a part of it was given to candidate vaccines that were at more nascent stages of development.
Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Thursday thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for allowing Maharashtra-government owned Haffkine Institute to manufacture Bharat Biotech's Covaxin, on the basis of transfer of technology.
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Mumbai s Haffkine Institute to manufacture Covid-19 vaccine Covaxin
Amid deteriorating Covid-19 situation in the country, the Centre has granted permission to Haffkine Institute, Mumbai to manufacture Bharat Biotech s Covid-19 vaccine Covaxin. The state-run biomedical research institute will manufacture the drug on the basis of transfer of technology. The Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, has granted approval to Haffkine Institute to produce Bharat Biotech s Covaxin vaccine on a transfer of technology basis, the Maharashtra Chief Minister s Office tweeted.Â
Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray has thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for allowing Haffkine Institute to manufacture Covaxin. CM Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray has thanked Prime Minister for approving this request, the tweet added.
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