India based Pharma giant Serum Institute of India (SII), whose vaccine product Covishield vaccine has already received restricted emergency use approval by the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI), has now sought permission to start clinical trials of 'COVOVAX', a COVID-19 vaccine developed by Novavax. Adar Poonawalla, CEO of SII, through a Twitter tweet said: "Our partnership for a COVID-19 vaccine with Novavax has also published excellent efficacy results. We have also applied to start trials in India. Hope to launch COVOVAX by June 2021". 

A government official said, "Serum Institute has applied to the DCGI for its Novavax vaccine. The Subject Expert Committee (SEC) sometime back has reviewed their application and asked them to submit the revised protocol. The application would be evaluated thoroughly by the expert panel as and when the revised will be submitted by the firm". The thing to be noted is SII is already manufacturing millions of doses of Covishield vaccine in technical collaboration with Oxford University and AstraZeneca. 

Novavax announced in a Press statement that NVX-CoV2373, its protein-based COVID-19 vaccine candidate, met the primary endpoint, with a vaccine efficacy of 89.3 per cent, in its Phase three clinical trial conducted in the United Kingdom (UK). The efficacy of virus over new strain was also analysed during the study. The vaccine is expected to be used in Britain, the European Union and other countries, the study enrolled 15000 people of age group 18 to 84. This vaccine can neither cause COVID-19 nor can it replicate, is stable at 2 degrees Celsius to 8 degrees Celsius (refrigerated) and is logistics friendly too as it is  shipped in a ready-to-use liquid formulation that permits distribution using existing vaccine supply chain channels. 

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