Domestic vaccine major Serum Institute of India is seeking indemnity from liability for its COVID vaccines, saying that the rules should be same for all the companies, according to sources. The development comes after requests for indemnity and exemption from bridging trials have been made by Pfizer and Moderna to the Narendra Modi government.
“Rules should be the same for everyone,” a source at the Serum Institute said. Earlier, Serum Institute CEO Adar Poonawalla had said that vaccine manufacturers need to have protection against all lawsuits for their vaccines, especially during a pandemic. In December 2020, speaking at an event, he said, “we need to have the government indemnify manufacturers, especially vaccine manufacturers, against all lawsuits. In fact, COVAX and other countries have already started talking about that”.
Serum Institute is producing Oxford-AstraZeneca’s COVID vaccine ‘Covishield’ in India and clinical trials of its second vaccine ‘Covovax’ have begun in the country and the company hopes to launch it by September this year.
