The Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII), manufacturer of Covishield vaccine, is all set to roll out its second Covid-19 vaccine candidate in India by September.
All you need to know:
The new vaccine shall be launched under the brand name of Covovax, which SII is manufacturing in partnership with Novovax. According to a report by The Economic Times, the company has already received its first lot of supplies of key raw materials for Covovax production.
Earlier in March, the company started the clinical trial for Covovax.It has been tested against African and UK variants of Covid and has an overall efficacy of 89 per cent.
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The vaccine was earlier expected to be launched in June, but Serum’s CEO Adar Poonawalla had said in March that a temporary US ban on exports of critical raw materials could limit the production of coronavirus vaccines such as Novavax.
Will it be better than Covishield and Covaxin?
In its phase 3 trial, Novavax’s has shown 90.4 per cent efficacy, putting it in the same league as other vaccines including Pfizer-BioNTech (91.3 per cent) and Moderna (90 per cent). Meanwhile, it is slightly higher than that of Covishield (76 per cent) and Covaxin (81 per cent). Russia’s Sputnik V which has already arrived in India currently has an efficacy rate of 91.6 per cent.
