’Have a Drug Controller who responds even after office hours’: Serum’s Cyrus Poonawalla

One of the major reasons why the Serum Institute of India could launch their Covid-19 vaccine quickly was due to forthcoming grants, permission, encouragement to industries and considerably reduced licensing raj, Cyrus Poonawalla, MD and Chairman of SII, said on Friday.

“We have a Drug Controller who responds even after office hours,” the Serum Institute Chairman said at the Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth in Pune.

Cyrus Poonawalla also reportedly said that he is opposed to the mixing of Covishield and Covaxin that is currently under the proposal.

Cyrus Poonawalla's comments came days after the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) gave its approval for conducting a study on the mixing of Covaxin and Covishield Covid-19 vaccines in India. The study will be conducted by the Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore.

The trial will involve 300 healthy volunteers.

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has revealed in its study that the combination of Covaxin and Covishield vaccines, the two main vaccines of the COVID-19 vaccination programme, conducted on 18 people, has elicited better safety and immunogenicity results.

In the study, ICMR compared the safety and immunogenicity profile with those individuals who received either Covaxin or Covishield and it showed better results.

The findings of the study suggest that immunization with a combination of an adenovirus vector platform-based vaccine followed by an inactivated whole virus vaccine was not only safe but also elicited better immunogenicity.