COVID-19 vaccines to be ready by mid-2021: Biocon's Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw

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New Delhi: As the clamour for a COVID-19 vaccine goes stronger, chairperson and managing director of Bengaluru-based Biocon Ltd Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw believes India could have a vaccine by mid-2021.

Mazumdar-Shaw said that it was likely that the vaccine will be available in the country by June, but pointed out that delivering the vaccine to all Indians will be challenging. 

"My expectation is that the first mRNA vaccines will be approved by the end of the year. But they are not going to be available in India because they require a -80 degree cold chain and that is not something which we can handle here," she said.

Further, she explained, "I expect that by January, some of the other vaccines could be approved like AstraZeneca’s, or one of our own Indian vaccines, like the one by Bharat Biotech. If we finish the clinical trials in the next 2-3 months, even those may be approved by January-February. So, I would expect that in Q1 2021-22 we should have vaccines available in India." 

She said in an interview to livemint.com.

On Friday, Biocon announced its September quarter earnings which saw a net profit fall of Rs 169 crore from Rs 216 crore in the year-ago quarter. 

Meanwhile, the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) clears Covaxin, the coronavirus vaccine being developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) for the third phase of clinical trials. 

Besides, Bharat Biotech, an indigenously developed vaccine candidate by Zydus Cadila Ltd is also in Phase 2 of human clinical trials.

The Pune-based Serum Institute of India, which has partnered with AstraZeneca for manufacturing the Oxford COVID-19 vaccine candidate, is also conducting Phase 2 and 3 human clinical trials of the candidate in India.