SII CEO asks US to lift raw material export ban to ramp up vaccine production

Adar Poonawalla had earlier admitted that Serum Institute of India has been facing problems in sending out required number of batches of vaccines due to bureaucratic and government-related hurdles.
Adar Poonawalla
Adar Poonawalla
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The CEO of Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII), Adar Poonawalla on Friday asked the United States of America to lift its embargo on raw material exports to help ramp up vaccine production. Serum Institute of India is currently manufacturing the anti-coronavirus vaccine Covishield, developed by Astrazeneca and Oxford University. The vaccine is not only being used in India, but exported to a number of countries.

Poonawalla had earlier admitted that SII has been facing problems in sending out the required number of batches of vaccines due to the bureaucratic and government-related hurdles.

Tagging the twitter handle of the President of the United States, Poonawalla said in a tweet, "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."

Earlier in March, Poonawalla had said that the production of coronavirus vaccines and scaling up global availability could be seriously limited due to the ban on exports of critical raw materials by the US. Speaking at an event organised by the World Bank in March, Poonawalla had said one of the constraints that needs to be addressed but nobody is able to address so far is the availability of critical items from the US.

"...There are lot of bags and filters and critical items that manufacturers need. I will give you an example. The Novavax vaccine that we are a major manufacturer of, need these items from the US...Now the US has chosen to invoke the Defence Act, in which there is a sub-clause which prevents the export of critical raw materials required for their local vaccine manufacturers," he had said.

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