India's Serum Institute sees 100M doses of COVID vaccine expire; Novavax booster on approval path
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Serum Institute of India (SII) CEO Adar Poonawalla on Thursday said that at least 100M doses of the company's COVID vaccine had expired after production was already stopped in December 2021 due to low demand.
SII makes AstraZeneca (NASDAQ:AZN) and Oxford University's COVID vaccine Vaxzevria and sells it under the name Covishield in India.
The vaccines, which have an expiration period of nine months, had expired in September 2022, BBC reported.
"The booster vaccines have no demand as people now seem fed up with COVID," said Poonawala.
Covishield accounts for over 90% of the doses given in India. In January 2022, India began giving boosters, but so far the country has administered only 298M booster shots, added the report citing India' health ministry.
In addition, Poonawalla, said that the company had completed trials for Novavax's (NASDAQ:NVAX) COVID vaccine Covovax as a booster shot and was expecting approval in the coming 10 to 15 days.
Poonawalla added that SII has collaborated with Novavax for an Omicron-specific booster.
Separately, earlier it was reported that Pfizer (PFE) is expecting to hike the price of its COVID vaccine, developed with BioNTech (BNTX) Wall Street has been expecting price hikes because of weaker demand for COVID vaccines.