Modi asks vaccine firms for suggestions to improve regulatory processes

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday asked vaccine companies to come up with their suggestions and ideas regarding regulatory processes in the country and urged them to explain vaccine safety and efficacy in simple language so that the general public can understand it.

Modi said this during a virtual meeting with teams at three vaccine manufacturing firms ― Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, Biological E and Gennova Biopharmaceuticals ― to understand the progress made by their candidate vaccines which are in various stages of development.

He also asked the concerned government departments to work closely with the manufacturers and seek to resolve their problems so that the efforts by these companies bear fruit in order to serve the needs of the country and the entire world.

Also read: Covid-19 vaccine: Modi to interact with Dr Reddy’s, Gennova Biopharma, Biological E teams

While Hyderabad-based Dr Reddy’s is currently working with Russian Infrastructure Development Fund to test the Russian Covid-19 vaccine Sputnik V, Biological E has tied up with Janssen Pharmaceutica, a firm from the Johnson & Johnson stable, for carrying out trials and subsequently market the latter’s adenovirus vector-based Covid-19 vaccine, which is said to require a single intramuscular shot. Biological E received the drug regulator’s nod for conducting early to mid-term human trials of the vaccine last month. Pune-based Gennova’s mRNA vaccine is in pre-clinical trials stage.

The Prime Minister also discussed matters relating to logistics, transport, and cold chain arrangements required for delivering the vaccines which are at different stages of trials, and detailed data and results are expected early next year onwards.

Meanwhile, India reported 38,772 new cases of Covid-19 in the last 24 hours, while 45,333 people recovered during the same period. There were 443 deaths since Sunday morning.

Also read: PM Modi visits Serum Institute

One of the reasons for the dip in the number of cases ― compared to 41,200 cases on Sunday ― was the lesser number of tests carried out in the last 24 hours. The number of tests fell by nearly 32 per cent to 8.76 lakh during this period.

The total active cases in the country as of now are nearly 4.47 lakh even though the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases so far crossed 94.31 lakh. Around 88.48 lakh people recovered, while 1,37,139 people died of the pandemic since it was first confirmed in the country exactly 10 months ago on January 30.

The cumulative number of tests carried out in the county has crossed 14 crore, according to the Indian Council of Medical Research.