Serum Institute's Poonawalla urges US President to ‘lift embargo on vaccine raw material exports’

New Delhi, April 16: In a bid to ramp up the production of the Vaccines production in India, Adar Poonawalla, CEO and owner of Serum Institute of India, urged US President Joe Biden to lift the embargo on the export of raw materials for Vaccine production. 

 

Tagging Biden on Twitter, Poonawalla wrote, “Respected @POTUS, if we are to truly unite in beating this virus, on behalf of the vaccine industry outside the U.S. I humbly request you to lift the embargo of raw material exports out of the U.S. so that vaccine production can ramp up. Your administration has the details.”

 

 

 

 

At the time when India came forward to save the humanity, Biden administration in the US had recently invoked the Defence Production Act. Under the act, the US has banned the export of critical raw materials required for their local vaccine manufacturers. The band has damaged SII’s ability to ramp up production. It has also hit other countries' vaccine manufacturers, including India's Bharat Biotech.

 

Poonawalla had said earlier that SII would need around Rs 3,000 crore to ramp up COVID-19 vaccine production capacity. The Pune-based Serum Institute of India is the world’s largest manufacturer of vaccines. It is currently manufacturing the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine ‘Covishield’.

 

SII has already delivered over 100 million doses to India and exported around 60 million doses to other countries.

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