There has to be “no cutting corners”, it’s just a different way of working, said, Johnson & Johnson Special Envoy for the Covid-19 vaccine Jaak Peeters, assuring people that Covid-19 vaccines that are being rolled-out in record time, are indeed safe and efficacious.

“We are moving fast,” he said but added that it did not mean safety or efficacy was compromised as companies were testing their products “parallelly”, and not serially or linearly that they normally would. “Alongside this, companies and the Government were also undertaking at-risk production, before the final data was out, and that meant financial risk,” he added, not safety.

In J&J’s case, he said, the technology platform used for the vaccine was something the company had done work on for 20 years, resulting in the ebola and zika vaccines. Interim data on J&J’s single-shot vaccine would be available by later next month, he said.

Peeters was answering a query from Sarthak Ranade, Managing Director of Janssen India, on concerns raised by the people on Covid-19 vaccines, given the fast-tracked processes. He was speaking at an industry conclave hosted by the Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India (OPPI), a platform for multinational drugmakers.

J&J has a production alliance in India with Biological E Narender Mantena, Biological E’s head of global strategy and Chief Executive, Specialty Generic Injectables and Synthetic Biology, said, “India was already a destination of choice on the vaccine, with 60 per cent of the world’s vaccines sourced from here. Covid further reinforced the idea with the global partnerships being forged with Indian companies.”

Interestingly, the summit presented the life-time achievement award to the domestic drugmaker, Cipla’s doyen Dr YK Hamied. Dr Hamied said there was a need to “repurpose” research in the country, but the innovations needed to be adaptable to local conditions and had to be within the humanitarian context. The summit also gave a special recognition award to Dr VG Somani, Drugs Controller General of India (DGCI).

Lauding the efforts of local drugmakers and medical device companies for stepping up to the challenges created by Covid-19, Chemicals and Fertilizers Minister, DV Sadananda Gowda pointed out that India had attracted large scale foreign direct investment into the pharmaceutical and medical devices sector.” Pharmaceutical exports were over $20 billion in 2019-20 was expected to cross $25 billion by the end of the current financial year. And this, when the domestic market crossed $22 billion last year,” he said. Against the Covid backdrop, S Aparna, Secretary with the Department of Pharmaceuticals, urged the industry to reimagine their business and to look at doing things sustainably, as well.

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