A week after announcing the price of its COVID-19 vaccine — Covishield — for the state governments and private hospitals, Pune-based Serum Institute of India has announced reducing the price of its vaccine for the state government from Rs 400 per dose to Rs 300 per dose.
This was announced by Adar Poonawalla, CEO and owner of the Serum Institute, who tweeted: “… hereby reduce the price to the states from Rs.400 to Rs.300 per dose, effective immediately; this will save thousands of crores of state funds going forward. This will enable more vaccinations and save countless lives.”
On April 21, Serum Institute of India Pvt Ltd announced price of its Covishield vaccine. Covishield, it said, would be sold to the state governments for Rs 400 per dose and to the private hospitals for Rs 600 per dose. The company claimed that as compared to the other international COVID-19 vaccines, Covishield was ‘affordable’.
Serum Institute went on to inform that the company was scaling up the vaccine production, and is reserving 50 per cent of its capacities for the Indian government’s vaccination programme and the remaining for the state governments and the private hospitals.
Three days later, on April 24, Serum Institute issued a media statement clarifying that “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”. It went on to say that “COVISHIELD is the most affordable COVID-19 vaccine available in the market today”.
The same day, on April 24, Bharat Biotech International Ltd also announced that “following the directives of the Government of India”, the price of its COVID-19 vaccine, Covaxin, which is India’s first indigenous COVID-19 vaccine, will be Rs 600 per dose for state governments and Rs 1,200 per dose for private hospitals. The same would be exported at $15-$20 per dose.
Meanwhile the same vaccine is being supplied to the central government at Rs 150 per dose, which the Indian government is distributing free of cost. The company informed that 50 per cent of its capacities “have been reserved for Central Government supplies”.
These differential price announcements by the vaccine manufacturers led to strong criticism from both public health experts and public in general. Two days back, on April 26, the Indian government has asked Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech — the two COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers in the country — to lower the prices of their vaccines Covishield and Covaxin, respectively.
Also Read: Centre asks Serum Institute, Bharat Biotech to lower the prices of COVID19 vaccines
