SII To Cut Covishield Production by 50% Starting Next Week, Says Adar Poonawalla; Know Why

New Delhi: Serum Institute of India (SII) has decided to cut production of COVID-19 vaccine, Covishield, by as much as 50 per cent as there aren’t any further orders from the Centre.

“Reducing production by at least 50 per cent starting next week as we have no further orders from the government,” SII CEO Adar Poonawalla said in an exclusive conversation with Shereen Bhan, Managing Editor, CNBC-TV18 on Tuesday.

He, however, said he wants to keep excess capacity in case the nation needs a huge amount of stock. “Hope it never happens, but I don’t want to be in a situation where we can’t provide vaccines over the next 6 months,” Poonawalla said. He also said they would stockpile 20-30 million doses of Sputnik light vaccine and won’t “take too many risks”. “As soon as we get a license, we can produce at a very high rate,” he said.