’Hope to launch Covovax by September 2021’: Serum Institute’s Adar Poonawalla on 2nd Covid vaccine

Serum Institute of India (SII), the world's biggest Covid-19 vaccine maker, is hopeful of launching Covovax - developed in partnership with American vaccine developer Novavax - by September this year, its CEO Adar Poonawalla said on Saturday.

The Serum Institute CEO said that the Covid-19 vaccine, Covovax, has been tested against African and UK variants of Covid-19 and has overall efficacy of 89%.

"Covovax trials finally begin in India; the vaccine is made through a partnership with @Novavax and @SerumInstIndia. It has been tested against African and UK variants of #COVID19 and has an overall efficacy of 89%. Hope to launch by September 2021," Adar Poonawalla tweeted this afternoon.

SII's clinical trial for Covovax vaccine begins

Pune-based SII's phase 2 and 3 bridging study of 1,600 participants for the Covovax vaccine has started at one of the trial sites in Pune, with at least one more site expected to begin screening as early as Tuesday.

"The trials have started at a hospital in Pune on Thursday. More will start enrolling soon," said a source to Livemint on Friday.

All you need to know about SII's second vaccine

Poonawalla had earlier said that the US-based pharma firm's Covid jab against the novel coronavirus had published 'excellent efficacy results'.

Covovax is SII's version of the coronavirus vaccine developed by US-based Novavax, which earlier this month had announced that the doses have an efficacy of 96% against the original strain, determined in a phase 3 trial conducted in the UK.

This is the highest efficacy so far achieved for a Covid-19 vaccine against the original variant of Covid-19.

However, the efficacy of the vaccine dropped to 86.3% against the mutant strain that is now the dominant strain in Britain. On average, the efficacy of the Covid-19 vaccine was 89.7%, the firm had said.

Meanwhile, in another phase 2 trial conducted in South Africa, where another mutant variant is dominant, the overall efficacy dropped to 48.6%.

While the efficacy is lower against the mutant strains, the vaccine still has shown better results as compared to the jab co-developed by AstraZeneca plc and the University of Oxford.

The Pune-based Serum Institute also contract manufactures the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine under the brand Covishield, which is the most-widely available jab in India as well as World Health Organization-led Covax.

India had begun the world's largest vaccination campaign with SII's Covishield and Hyderabad-based pharma firm Bharat Biotech's Covaxin.

Covishield has been developed in partnership with the Oxford University and British-Swedish firm AstraZeneca.