"An emotional moment for the team at Serum Institute of India (SII) as first shipments of Covishield finally leave for multiple locations across India,” tweeted their chief executive officer (CEO) Adar Poonawalla on January 12, 2021. He called the moment "historic,” according to news reports. Three trucks rolled out of SII’s Poona manufacturing facility with 5.65 million doses of the Covishield vaccine. SII is reportedly selling the vaccination to the government at a special rate of Rs 200 per dose, which is said to be below costs. Poonawalla told NDTV that "the rest of the government’s order — 56 million doses — would be supplied by February 2021.” The SII facility could produce around 70 or 80 million doses per month, he noted.
Adar Poonawalla’s "historic" moment Photo: Twitter
SII has been working on the vaccine development in collaboration with Oxford University and pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca since May 2020 (see "Serum’s vaccine production,” Events and Personalities, Parsiana, June 21-July 6, 2020).
According to a report of January 12, hosted on pharmaceutical-technology.com, US based biotechnology firm Codagenix and SII "have dosed the first patient in Phase I clinical trial of a single-dose, intranasal Covid-19 vaccine, COVI-VAC.” A press announcement from Codagenix dated September 22, 2020 hosted on SII’s website had stated that the Indian company has started manufacture of their partner’s nasal Covid-19 vaccine (see "Covid challenges for corporates,” Parsiana, October 21-November 6, 2020).
Vials and seals for the SII vaccines are supplied by the Parsi-owned Schott Kaisha (SK) Private Limited and Kaisha Packaging (KP) Private Limited. "We can’t divulge numbers as there is confidentiality involved, but we supply 100% of the volumes,” Gev Karai of their finance department told Parsiana on January 13, 2021. SK is a joint venture between international technology group Schott and businessmen Kairus Dadachanji and Shapoor Mistry. KP has common shareholders and directors with SK.
Reportedly, Wadia Group owned airline Go Air was one of the carriers that moved the vaccines out of Poona. Pictures in the print media revealed that Tata Motors’ vehicles were part of the transportation chain. Conglomerate Godrej Appliances plans to launch in January 2021 a -70° Celsius ultra-low temperature freezer for storing vaccines, company’s officials had told Mint on December 23, 2020.