Indian firm likely to begin production of coronavirus vaccine in next two weeks

New Delhi, Apr 27: An Indian firm has said that it is likely to begin production of coronavirus vaccine in the next two to three weeks.

Serum Institute of India in Pune said that it would produce the Oxford University developed vaccine and it is hopeful that it could bring it to the market by October if the human trials are successful.

The company has partnered with Oxford University as one of the seven global institutions manufacturing the vaccine.

"SII will be manufacturing the vaccine in anticipation of clinical trials succeeding by September-October in the UK... Following that, SII has undertaken the decision to initiate the manufacture at their own risk. The decision has been solely taken to have a jump-start on manufacturing, to have enough doses available, if the clinical trials work," said Adar Poonawalla, chief executive officer of the Indian vaccine major, in a statement.

"Our team has been working closely with Dr Hill ( professor Adrian Hill) from Oxford University, and we are expecting to initiate production of the vaccine in two-three weeks and produce five million doses per month for the first 6 months, following which, we hope to scale up production to 10 million doses per month," he also said.

The human safety trials of the vaccine began in Oxford on Thursday. This is the sixth coronavirus vaccine to enter the first phase of clinical trials. If the trials are successful, scientists hope to have one million doses ready by September. The production would be dramatically ramped up after that.