Serum Institute of India’s Covishield vaccine will be available to state governments at Rs. 400 per dose and private hospitals at Rs. 600 a dose. It is currently selling its vaccine at Rs. 150 per dose to the central government. This announcement was made two days after the central government decided to open up vaccinations against Covid-19 to those above the age of 18 years.
While AstraZeneca and Oxford University developed the Covishield vaccine, Serum Institute of India (Pune) has been manufacturing it under a licence from the Swedish-British drug maker.
According to media reports, Indians could end up paying the highest amount for the vaccine in comparison to others. Serum Institute’s CEO Adar Poonawala was quoted by the Indian Express as saying, “We have given a special price of Rs 200 for the first 100 million doses only to the Government of India… and after that, we will be selling at Rs 1,000 in private markets.” But this latest decision of Rs.600 per dose translates to about 8 dollars per shot and is more than its price in any major global market.
In a statement issued today, Adar Poonawala also said, “Only a limited portion of SII’s volume will be sold to private hospitals at INR 600 per dose. The price of the vaccine is still lower than a lot of other medical treatment and essentials required to treat Covid-19 and other life-threatening diseases.”
We at @SerumInstIndia have for the past five decades been at the forefront of supplying vaccines and saving lives globally. We care about and respect every human life and strongly believe in transparency, and thus we hope our statement below can clear any confusions. pic.twitter.com/YQ3x38BuFL
— SerumInstituteIndia (@SerumInstIndia) April 24, 2021
According to the Indian Express, Indians getting inoculated against Covid at state government hospitals, too, could end up paying around Rs 400 (or over USD 5.30) per dose if states decide that they cannot afford to absorb the costs of procuring fresh doses.
The price is also reportedly higher than the price agreed by countries such as Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia and South Africa for supplies of the vaccine from SII. In most of these countries, the shots are being administered for free, with the governments taking responsibility for taking up the costs. As per a report in Reuters, Bangladesh is paying an average of USD 4 per dose supplied by Serum.
In an interview to CNN-TV18, Adar Poonawala said that the price of the vaccine was fixed a long time back. “50 percent of my revenue has to be given to AstraZeneca as a royalty and that is why the price at Rs 150 was really, really just not making sense,” he said. He claimed that Covishield’s price to India is now higher than in other country, because their prices were negotiated “a long time ago” for limited quantities when there was uncertainty about its success.
In another interview with NDTV, Poonawala had said that the subsidised rate of Rs.150 (USD 2.02) with GST was given to the Centre for limited time, only on the Modi government’s request. On April 6, the IE quoted him telling NDTV, “This is based on the Modi government’s request, and we’ve risen to the occasion, sacrificed profits- I wouldn’t say we’re not making any profits but we’ve sacrificed what we would call ‘super profits’, which we would need to further build capacity, innovate and compete with the Western companies.”
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