The rumor around an imminent Covid-19 vaccine has raised hopes for a path back to normal for the billions affected by the pandemic around the world, said Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, president and managing director of Biocon Ltd. , based in Bengaluru.
Mazumdar-Shaw is hopeful that the vaccine will be in India in June, but added that delivering it to all Indians has its own challenges. Biocon, which announced its September quarter earnings on Friday, saw its net profit fall to Rs 169 crore from Rs 216 crore in the prior year quarter. In an interview, he shared his views on the vaccine and its challenges. Edited excerpts:
When can we expect a Covid-19 vaccine in India?
My expectation is that the first mRNA vaccines will be approved by the end of the year. But they won’t be available in India because they require a -80 degree cold chain and that’s not something we can handle here. I hope that by January some of the other vaccines can be approved, like the one from AstraZeneca, or one of our own Indian vaccines, like the one from Bharat Biotech. If we finish clinical trials in the next 2-3 months, even those can be approved in January-February. So I would expect that in the first quarter of 2021-22 we would have vaccines available in India.
What are the challenges you foresee in vaccine distribution here?
This vaccination scale for adults has never been done before. The polio vaccine was carried out for many years. The polio vaccine can be administered by ASHA workers and others, but the Covid vaccines will be intramuscular injections, and you will need nurses, doctors, MBBS students to administer the vaccine. In addition to human resources, we have to get the necessary infrastructure for the cold chains to be installed correctly.
Read the full interview on livemint.com
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