Coronavirus Vaccine Agreement: Bangladesh’s Beximco said it will invest in Serum India Ltd representative)
Calcutta:
As the race for a COVID-19 vaccine intensifies, Bangladesh’s leading pharmaceutical company, Beximco, has announced that it will invest in Adar Poonawalla’s Serum India Limited (SIL) for the development of the vaccine. The size of the investment has not been disclosed, but will depend on SIL’s priority supply commitment to Beximco Pharma Ltd (BPL).
The agreement is designed to ensure that Bangladesh is among the first countries to receive an agreed quantity of this IBS vaccine on a priority basis, a BPL statement said on Friday. The investment will be treated as an advance on the vaccine, he added.
“At Beximco we have been able to ensure that once the vaccine is registered globally, Bangladesh will be one of the first countries to use it,” BPL Director Shayan F Rahman told NDTV, adding: “It is a sign of the depth of relationship not only between Serum India and Beximco, but also between the two countries. “
The agreement between the two companies announced on August 28; It comes about 10 days after India’s Foreign Secretary Harsh Shringla met Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in Dhaka. “For us, Bangladesh is always a priority country,” Shringla said on August 19 before returning to India. “India produces 60% of the world’s vaccines. When the vaccine is produced, it goes without saying that our closest neighbors, friends, partners and other countries will be part of that.”
On Thursday, August 27, Bangladesh’s Health Minister Zahid Maleque announced that the country approved an advanced-stage trial of a candidate vaccine developed by China’s Sinovac Biotech Ltd (SVA.O) in hopes of being a priority recipient. .
The BPL vaccine offers an option to that. In a statement on Friday, August 28, it said it would “facilitate meeting the needs of the Government of Bangladesh (GOB) by offering the opportunity to reserve the desired quantities for priority supply at prices to be agreed between the GOB (government) and the SII. The Company will also secure additional quantities of the vaccine to be distributed in the private pay market in Bangladesh. “
“This historic agreement reflects the ingrained desire for collaboration between the two countries and as representatives of the two nations, between us, we can go a long way to help mitigate the health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic,” Adar. C Poonawalla, owner and CEO of SII, and Shayan F Rahman, director of BPL, jointly said in a statement issued by Beximco on Friday.
SIL is currently conducting phase 3 trials for the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine (AZD1222), an adenovirus vector-based vaccine, which is currently also undergoing large-scale phase III trials in Brazil, the US, and the UK.
“Trials in the UK are ongoing and have shown very encouraging results and are expected to receive approval by the end of 2020. SIL has already partnered with Oxford / AstraZeneca together with the Gates Foundation and Gavi to produce over 1 billion of vaccine doses for global supply, “says the BPL statement.
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