Stanley C Erck, president and CEO, Novavax, on Wednesday said the collaboration with Indian vaccine maker, Serum Institute of India (SII) will be taken forward with both partners working on vaccines against flu, malaria and respiratory syncytial virus in babies.
After USFDA’s recent authorisation of Novavax’s Nuvaxovid vaccine (known as Covovax in India), SII has become the first Indian manufacturer to access the US vaccine market. Around 3.5 million SII-made doses of the Novavax vaccine have already been sent to the United States. The vaccine was also being exported to highly regulated markets in Europe and Australia.
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Erck said Novavax and Serum Institute had been working on the malaria vaccine and were talking about a joint venture to make flu vaccine when Covid hit. They worked together for the Covid-19 vaccine, which had received approval from the US and after reaching this milestone they were looking to collaborate on future vaccines.
Adar Poonawalla, CEO, SII said it was for the first time, that an Indian company had been able to register and qualify its vaccines for the United States and ship vaccines to the US. “This opens the door to many other partnerships including the flu vaccine and malaria vaccine,” Poonawalla said. SII was working using the Novavax adjuvant, Matrix-M for the malaria vaccine, which would make their vaccine the best in the world compared to what is currently available. He was hopeful of registering it and supplying it to the United States.
Poonawalla said while everyone talks of innovation, most of the time it just ends up lying on the shelves and never comes to fruition but both partners along with the support of both the Indian and US governments were able to execute it and take the innovation forward.
“In 2021 when we needed raw materials for making vaccines and there was a global shortage, the US government and Biden administration supported and helped to get those raw materials,” he said.
Gregory Glenn, president, Novavax R&D, who led the Covid-19 vaccine design and development said, the Covid-19 vaccine was here to stay. It would persist, continuously evolve and escape immunity, Glenn said. Their differentiated Covid-19 vaccine, manufactured by Serum, had demonstrated efficacy against several variants with a robust immune response, he said. Their vaccine would work well against variants that were there yesterday, today’s and tomorrow’s strain, Glenn said. As the virus was evolving, it was important to receive booster shots so they had made an application to the USFDA for Emergency Use Authorization for their vaccine as boosters. Glenn was hopeful that the application would be reviewed with urgency and US could take advantage of the Novavax-Serum Institute vaccine, produced at Serum Institute as a booster. Japan and Australia had already approved their vaccines as a booster dose, he said.
The Novavax team and a delegation from US was visiting SII’s campus in Pune to mark 75 years of US-India bilateral relationship in health.
Patricia Lacina, Charge D’Affaires at the US Embassy said the Indo-US collaboration on vaccines was not new and they had worked together on influenza, rotavirus and meningococcal vaccines in the past. The research was now focused on dengue, chikungunya and Covid-19, she said. Working with QUAD partners, Japan and Australia, the QUAD vaccine partnership was committed to expanding capacities for local production of safe and effective vaccines, she added.
