With No Orders from Govt, SII to Cut Covishield Production by 50%: Adar Poonawalla

Serum Institute of India (SII) CEO Adar Poonawalla on Tuesday said that the company has decided to cut production of Covid-19 vaccine, Covishield, by as much as 50 percent as there aren’t any further orders from the Centre. “Reducing production by at least 50 percent starting next week as we have no further orders from the government,” said Poonawalla in an exclusive conversation with Shereen Bhan, Managing Editor, CNBC-TV18.

He, however, said he wants to keep excess capacity in case the nation needs a huge amount of stock. “Hope it never happens, but I don’t want to be in a situation where we can’t provide vaccines over the next 6 months,” Poonawalla said. He also said they would stockpile 20-30 million doses of Sputnik light vaccine and won’t “take too many risks”. “As soon as we get a license, we can produce at a very high rate,” he said.

On the efficacy of the current vaccines in the wake of the emergence of the new Covid variant, Omicron, Poonawalla said there’s no reason to believe that existing jabs will not work. “There is no reason to believe that we won’t have a decent level of protection with double vaccination. Indian experts have deemed the level of protection as very good,” he said, adding that Astrazenaca had 80% efficacy against the virus as per Lancet.

Further, he said, “Not sure of the reasons behind the statement by Moderna manufacturers without sufficient data. Should be wary of making predictions without proper data.” Poonawalla was referring to the remarks made by Moderna Inc. president Stephen Hoge, who said that there’s a risk that current vaccines may not be as effective against Omicron.

Poonawalla further said that he has reviewed orders of 400-500 million doses through Covax and has been in touch with various African leaders. Covax was launched last April by Gavi, the World Health Organisation, European Commission and France with the objective to distribute Covid-19 vaccines to lower-and middle-income countries. Gavi is a global private-public health partnership, which aims to ensure access to vaccines in the poorest countries.

“They need to remove their logistics before they can absorb further supplies. The US has made huge donations of vaccine doses,” he said, adding that the current global supply of vaccine is more than what can be absorbed.

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