Until a year ago, Covid vaccines remained a distant prospect. However, with the scientific achievement of jabs that were developed effectively, now the challenge lies in the vaccinations making available for people. To talk on same, a panel discussion took place at the virtual event of India Global Forum 2021 where Head of Business Development, AXA Life, Odette Cesari; Dr Vijay Chauthaiwale, In-Charge, Foreign Affairs Department, Bharatiya Janata Party and Dr Shankar Musunuri, CEO & Co-founder of Ocugen shared their views on the same.
Dr Vijay started off the discussion saying on highlighting the current state of India during the pandemic. He said that India came out of the second wave, but still, the infections are there, and the states are vigilant who are putting their best efforts to contain the spread of the pandemic. However, at the same time, the best thing is that India's vaccination programme has gone into full swing and so far, the Indian government has vaccinated more than 300 million adults above 18 years and for the last 1 week, close to 5 million people per day were vaccinated.
On June 3, Bharat Biotech, who developed COVAXIN™, India’s Covid-19 vaccine in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) - National Institute of Virology (NIV), India's Covid-19 vaccine confirmed of expanding the agreement with Ocugen Inc- a biopharmaceutical company developing a vaccine to save lives from Covid-19- to commercialise the jab in Northern America and Canada as well. Now, the Indian biotech company along with Ocugen Inc, will co-develop, supply, and commercialise Covaxin for the US market. Dr Shankar Musunuri, CEO of Ocugen spoke of the partnership saying that they also initiated technology transfer to a US manufacturing site that means globally we can improve the supply. Once again, it is a differentiated vaccine, we just wanted to have many differentiated vaccines to control this pandemic which is extremely important.
During this conference, AXA Life’s Head of Business Development, Odette Cesari shared her views with regard to insurance sector where she admitted that the insurance industry has been hugely disrupted during pandemic, but give out health coverage to the large population across the globe was not stopped, she added.
“We have tried to contribute as much as we could in this difficult situation. First and foremost, we were able to offer vaccines to our employees and it was a fantastic opportunity to offer telemedicine in each and every country,” said AXA Life’s Head and Business Development. She informed that they will be launching the telemedicine initiative in India in, coming week.
Odette expressed that insurance companies saw the pandemic as an opportunity to help people who are insured. She further said, insurance companies went one step ahead and did partnerships and collaborations with pharma companies, governments, with tech providers to fight pandemic.
