No new Covishield orders, production to be halved from next week: SII's Poonawalla

MUMBAI: Serum Institute of India (SII), the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer by volume, on Tuesday said it is slashing production of Covishield by at least 50% from next week as the company has no further orders from the Centre.

“The company is in a dilemma as supply is more than demand for Covishield and it has to dial down the production. We will complete our existing orders to the government by next week. The company has written to the government for guidance on volumes needed,” CEO Adar Poonawalla said in an interview to CNBC-TV18.

At present, SII is manufacturing close to 250-275 million doses a month. Poonawalla had told TOI in an interview in October that the production in November would go to 240 million doses, up from around 220 million. TNN

‘Serum has 500mn doses, awaiting govt to get back to us’

Earlier the company was rolling out about 100-110 million doses per month. In November, the company resumed exports of Covishield to Covax, the WHO-backed global platform, after halting them in March when the country was hit by a lethal second wave of infections.

“If the government doesn’t need it, SII will start exporting as I mentioned in Q1of 2021. Wehave recently explained this to the government and we have been discussing, so I think we will wait a few days for them to have their internal discussion and get back to us,” Poonawalla added, according to CNBC-TV18.

Serum has 500 million doses of Covishield—half of that is finished product and half of that is bulk, which can be filled and finished in a matter of two months, and it has a shelf life of nine months—and it is available on priority to the Indian government.

Pointing out that the export of Covishield is also slow currently, he said the export orders would pick up in the next quarter. “Over the eight months when we could not export, other countries managed supplies from donations from the US and elsewhere and we have lost a lot of share,” he said, adding that he is now going to try to claw the demand back in the first quarter of next year.