India likely to reach pricing deal for Astra-Oxford vaccine in days

Bloomberg

The Serum Institute of India Ltd, which is producing the coronavirus vaccine developed by AstraZeneca Plc and the University of Oxford, expects the Indian government to sign a formal supply and pricing agreement within days after the shot was approved for emergency usage.
Officials in New Delhi have “indicated orally” that the first 100 million vaccines will be purchased and priced at 200 rupees ($2.74) and a deal should be inked “in the next one or two days,” Serum’s Chief Executive Officer Adar Poonawalla said in an interview. “They will probably take another 200 million after that and then we will probably end up selling to the private market,” which might be approved in “two or three months” at 1,000 rupees a vaccine, he said.
The Drugs Controller General of India, VG Somani, at a briefing earlier on Sunday confirmed the restricted approval of the Astra-Oxford shot. The move came just days after the UK regulator gave clearance to the vaccine and is the first step to inoculate about 1.3 billion citizens in the country that’s home to the world’s second-largest Covid-19 outbreak.
“They just want to make sure they have enough products for their most vulnerable and most needy to begin with,” Poonawalla said. “We are waiting for two things: how much quantity they want and where they want it. Once they give us that direction within 7 to 10 days we’ve committed we’ll roll it out.”
Serum, which is the world’s largest vaccine maker by volume, has an agreement with AstraZeneca to produce at least a billion doses.