Johnson & Johnson is interested in manufacturing its Covid-19 vaccine in India, a government official told a news conference on Tuesday.
India currently has no concern over the efficacy of the AstraZeneca vaccine that is being used in the country's massive inoculation campaign, Vinod Kumar Paul said.
He also said many more vaccines, including Russia's Sputnik V, Cadila Healthcare's ZyCov-D, and a Novavax product, were in the queue.
"India is fortunate to have two great made-in-India vaccines, and as many as six-seven vaccines in the pipeline and perhaps many more," he said, days after Pfizer Inc pulled an application seeking emergency-use authorization in the country.
The US company had declined to immediately do a small local safety study for its shot and produce it in India, unlike the other vaccine developers.
The Serum Institute of India (SII), the world's biggest vaccine maker, has licenced the vaccine from AstraZeneca and Oxford University and markets it as COVISHIELD for low-and middle-income countries.
