Bangladeshi Beximco has announced it will invest in Serum India Limited. (Representative image)
Calcutta:
As the race for the COVID-19 vaccine intensifies, Bangladesh’s leading pharmaceutical company Beximco has announced it will invest in Adar Poonawalla’s Serum India Limited (SIL) for vaccine development. The size of the investment has not been disclosed but will depend on SIL’s priority sourcing commitment to Beximco Pharma Ltd (BPL).
The deal is designed to ensure that Bangladesh is among the first countries to receive an agreed amount of this IBS vaccine on a priority basis, a BPL statement said on Friday. The investment will be treated as an advance for the vaccine, he added.
“At Beximco, we have been able to ensure that once the vaccine is registered worldwide, Bangladesh will be one of the first countries to use it,” BPL Director Shayan F Rahman told GalacticGaming, adding: “This is a sign of the depth of relations. not only between Serum India and Beximco, but also between the two countries.”
The agreement between the two companies announced on August 28; comes about 10 days after Indian Foreign Minister Harsh Shringla met Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in Dhaka. “For us, Bangladesh is always a priority country,” Shringla said on August 19 before returning to India. “India produces 60% of the world‘s vaccines. When the vaccine is produced, it goes without saying that our neighbors, friends, partners and other closest countries will be part of it.”
On Thursday, August 27, Bangladeshi Minister of Health Zahid Maleque announced that the country had approved an advanced stage trial of a candidate vaccine developed by Chinese company Sinovac Biotech Ltd (SVA.O) in the hope of ” be a priority beneficiary.
The BPL vaccine offers an option for this. In a statement on Friday, August 28, he said that it would “facilitate securing the needs of the Government of Bangladesh (GOB) by offering the possibility of reserving desired quantities for priority supply at prices to be agreed between the GOB (government ) and SII. The Company will also obtain additional quantities of vaccine for distribution in the private pay market in Bangladesh. “
“This historic 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 in alleviating the health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic,” Adar C Poonawalla, owner and CEO of SII and Shayan F Rahman, director of BPL, jointly said in a statement released by Beximco on Friday.
SIL is currently conducting phase 3 trials for the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine (AZD1222) – an adenovirus vector-based vaccine, currently also undergoing large-scale phase III trials in Brazil, the United States and the United Kingdom .
“The UK trials are well underway and have shown very encouraging results and are expected to receive approval by the end of 2020. SIL has already partnered with Oxford / AstraZeneca with the Gates and Gavi Foundation to produce over a billion doses of the vaccine for global supply, ”the BPL statement said.
