Serum Institute starts production of Novavax's COVID-19 vaccine Covovax

Vaccine manufacturer Serum Institute of India (SII) on Friday said it has started the production of first batch of Novavax's COVID-19 vaccine Covovax at its plant in Pune.

Earlier this month, Novavax Inc said its vaccine candidate 'NVX-CoV2373' demonstrated 100 per cent protection against moderate and severe disease, 90.4 per cent efficacy overall, and met the primary endpoint in phase-III trials.

In a tweet, SII said it has reached a new milestone by beginning the production of Covovax.

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. pic.twitter.com/FqoVTUa1nO

- SerumInstituteIndia (@SerumInstIndia) June 25, 2021

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SII CEO Adar Poonawalla also took to Twitter to express his excitement on the beginning of production of the vaccine. "The vaccine has great potential to protect our future generations below the age of 18. Trials are ongoing," he said.

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! pic.twitter.com/K4YzY6o73A

- Adar Poonawalla (@adarpoonawalla) June 25, 2021

In September 2020, Novavax had announced COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing agreement with SII, increasing Novavax's global production capacity of NVX-CoV2373 to over 2 billion doses annually.

Announcing the trial results, Novavax had said that on getting regulatory approvals, the company will be on track to reach manufacturing capacity of 100 million doses per month by the end of the third quarter and 150 million doses per month by the end of the fourth quarter of 2021.

The company has committed to supplying 110 million doses to the US over the next year and a total of 1.1 billion doses to developing countries.

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