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Kiran Mazumdar Shaw says COVID-19 vaccine may be available by June 2021 – Moneycontrol

Shaw says vaccine candidates will first be approved for emergency use and full approval will come only after evaluating the durability of response.

Biocon Chairperson Kiran Mazumdar Shaw has said a vaccine for COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, could be available in India by June 2021.

Companies in India and across the globe are in various stages of clinical trials to come out with vaccines for the novel coronavirus. India is the second most-affected country, with more than 7.8 million COVID-19 cases.

“I expect that by January, some of the other vaccines could be approved like AstraZeneca’s or one of our own Indian vaccines like the one by Bharat Biotech. If we finish the clinical trials in the next two-three months, even those may be approved by January-February. So I would expect that in Q1FY22 we should have vaccines available in India and other parts of the world,” Shaw told Mint.

Also read: Coronavirus vaccine tracker October 23 | Check out the latest developments from around the world

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She told the newspaper that these vaccine candidates would be approved for emergency use and full approval would come only after evaluating the durability of responses.

According to Shaw, Aadhaar can help the vaccination process, especially with vaccines that might require two doses. She said adult vaccination has never been done at such a large scale.

“I think Aadhaar is the best way to do it as it allows you to do something at a massive scale in such an efficient way unlike any other country can do,” she said.

On October 23, Bharat Biotech said it was aiming for a June 2021 launch of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate COVAXIN, which has received approval for Phase-3 clinical trials.

Biocon on October 23 reported a consolidated net profit of Rs 195.4 crore for Q2FY21, a 23.01 percent fall yoy.

“We have been impacted by much higher research and development (R&D) spend that has gone up by almost Rs 44 crore and a net loss of Rs 18 crore in forex compared to a net gain last year, Shaw told Mint.

Follow our full coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic here.

First Published on Oct 24, 2020 01:41 pm