'I make a personal pledge on behalf of Serum Institute that we recognise our moral responsibility to keep vaccines as affordable as possible for the underprivileged children,' appealed Cyrus S Poonawalla.
City-based pharmaceutical major, Serum Institute of India Ltd (SII), at an international meet in London, has appealed to big pharma companies and suppliers to follow the principle of ‘philanthropic pricing policy’ for the benefit of underprivileged children across the world.
“I make a personal pledge on behalf of Serum Institute that we recognise our moral responsibility to keep vaccines as affordable as possible for the underprivileged children. I would also urge other big pharma companies and suppliers to follow the same philanthropic policy on pricing like Serum Institute,” appealed the chairman and managing director of SIIL, Cyrus S Poonawalla.
He was addressing a gathering in London on Monday on the occasion of the pledging conference by the Global alliance for vaccines and immunisation (Gavi), a public-private partnership which draws together the World Health Organisation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the vaccine industry.
The conference is aimed at firm commitments from donors to fund immunisation in poor countries. Apart from SII, another Indian company, Panacea Biotec, had committed to price reductions on their pentavalent vaccines funded by Gavi.
Poonawalla announced that SII has offered Gavi its pentavalent vaccine at $1.75, which was earlier purchased by Gavi at more than $3 per dose. “This is the most affordable vaccine offered by any manufacturer in the world,” Poonawalla said.
SII is regarded as the largest WHO pre-qualified vaccine producer in the world for measles, measles-rubella combined vaccine as well as diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus and hepatitis-B combined vaccine.
The pentavalent (5-in-1) vaccine is given to children to protect them from life-threatening haemophilus influenza type B, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus and hepatitis B.
“We donated 12 million doses of measles-rubella vaccine to poor countries like Laos, Uzbekistan and 18.5 million doses at 50% discount
to the Philippines,”
Poonawala added.
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