Indian vaccine maker urges Biden to lift embargo on raw material exports

Wednesday 21st April 2021 06:55 EDT
 
 

Washington: The boss of India’s Serum Institute, the world’s largest maker of coronavirus vaccines, has asked President Biden to lift a US embargo on exporting raw materials needed to make jabs. Vaccine makers and experts in India have recently expressed concerns that America’s Defense Production Act is resulting in the export of critical raw materials being stopped. This is hobbling vaccine production in other parts of the world, they say.

“If we are to truly unite in beating this virus, on behalf of the vaccine industry outside the US, I humbly request you to lift the embargo of raw material exports out of the US so that vaccine production can ramp up,” Adar Poonawalla, chief executive of the Serum Institute, said.

He added that pivoting away from suppliers in the US could result in a delay of up to six months for the production of the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Novavax. The Serum Institute and Novavax have signed a deal to supply 1.1 billion doses of the vaccine to the UN-backed Covax facility to distribute it equitably across the globe. However, the institute recently paused exports to Covax after a devastating surge of infections in India resulted in increased domestic demand.

More than 250,000 new infections have been detected in the Indian now. Hospitals are overwhelmed and authorities are scrambling to try to vaccinate enough people to slow down the spread. But in doing so, India relies heavily on AstraZeneca shots made by the Serum Institute of India. Poonawalla had said the unavailability of the raw materials, such as the specific medium needed to grow microorganisms, would prevent the Serum Institute from scaling up the production of the vaccine developed by Novavax.

The company had been planning to make up to 40 million shots of the vaccine monthly. Ramping up production of this shot could also help India. Novavax has applied for emergency use of the vaccine to regulators in Europe, the US and the World Health Organisation. If approved, India would be able to use the shot under new regulations that make it easier to give the go-ahead to vaccines that have received the nod from the UK, US, Europe, Japan or WHO. Earlier this week, Stephane Bancel, chief executive of Moderna, said that export embargoes were also preventing US vaccine makers from exporting shots globally and resulting in shortages.


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