Beximco Pharmaceuticals Ltd (BPL) and Serum Institute of India Pvt Ltd (SII), the largest manufacturer of vaccines in the world, have joined forces for the development of the Covid-19 vaccine.
A press release, issued on Friday, said that BPL — the fastest growing manufacturer of generic pharmaceutical products and active pharmaceutical ingredients in Bangladesh — will be investing with SII and be SII’s exclusive distributor for this vaccine in Bangladesh.
The investment amount will be treated as an advance and once the vaccine receives regulatory approvals, SII will include Bangladesh among the countries that will be the first to receive an agreed quantity of this vaccine on a priority basis, said the release.
Dependent on SII’s production capacity and earlier commitments to other countries, it added, BPL’s investment amount and SII’s priority supply commitment will be determined.
Covid-19 is currently the focus of attention all over the world as the disease, caused by the novel coronavirus or SARS-CoV-2, is rapidly unfolding worldwide and has so far killed over 836,300 people, until Friday afternoon.
With news cases and death toll rising every day, the whole world is now watching to see when the cure for this disease will come.
According to the World Health Organization, more than 170 vaccines are under development globally and 32 vaccines are in a process of human trials.
The University of Oxford with AstraZeneca Plc, Moderna Inc and a partnership of Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE are among the vanguard. China's CanSino Biologics has received authorization for a limited deployment of its shot among the Chinese military.
Vaccine “Sputnik V” has been developed by the Gamaleya Research Institute in Moscow.
BPL will also facilitate to secure the needs of the Bangladesh government by offering the opportunity to reserve desired quantities for priority supply at prices to be agreed between the government and SII, said the press release.
BPL will also secure additional quantities of the vaccine to be distributed in the private pay market in Bangladesh, it said.
The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine (AZD1222) is an adenovirus vector-based vaccine, currently undergoing large scale phase III trials in Brazil, US, UK and India. The UK trials are well underway and has shown very encouraging results and is expected to receive approval by the end of 2020.
SII has already partnered with Oxford/AstraZeneca along with Gates Foundation and Gavi, to produce more than a billion doses of the vaccine for global supply.
Both Adar C Poonawalla, owner and CEO of SII, and Shayan F Rahman, principal of BPL, jointly commented: “We are excited to bring together two of the leading pharma companies in India and Bangladesh with the scale and capabilities to bring a hugely promising treatment to the people who need it the most.
“This landmark agreement reflects the deep-rooted desire for collaboration between the two countries and as representatives of the two nations, between us we can go a long way towards helping to mitigate the health crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.”
Experts estimate that a fast-tracked vaccine development process could speed a successful candidate to the market in approximately 12-18 months — if the process goes smoothly from conception to market availability.