Serum Institute starts manufacturing Covid-19 vaccine Covovax in India

Vaccine giant Serum Institute of India has started manufacturing Covovax, a Covid-19 vaccine developed by Novavax in it's plant in Pune.

"A new milestone has been reached; this week we began our first batch of Covovax (a COVID-19 vaccine developed by @Novavax) at our facility, here in Pune," tweeted the company.

"Excited to witness the first batch of Covovax (developed by @Novavax) being manufactured this week at our facility in Pune. The vaccine has great potential to protect our future generations below the age of 18. Trials are ongoing. Well done team @seruminstindia," Poonawalla said in a tweet.

In March this year, he had said that the clinical trials of the Covovax vaccine have begun in India and the company hopes to launch it by September this year. In August 2020, American vaccine company Novavax Inc had announced a licence agreement with SII for the development and commercialisation of NVX-CoV2373, its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, in low and middle-income countries and India.

In January this year, the Serum Institute had rolled out the Covishield vaccine in the country. It had entered into a collaboration with the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca to manufacture the vaccine.

(With inputs from PTI)