Three companies have applied for an emergency use authorization for their coronavirus vaccines in India.
The two biggest companies asking for the sped-up regulatory approval include Pfizer and Serum Institute of India (SII), which is manufacturing AstraZeneca’s candidate.
SII has already produced 40 million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine and plans to manufacture another 100 million before the end of the year. Theoretically, the shots could be approved for use in India in less than a week.
Pfizer has applied for an EUA in the U.S. and was approved for use on an emergency basis in the UK last week.
An Indian drugmaker called Bharat Biotech also applied for an approval of its vaccine candidate in India this week. The company is based in Hyderabad and has developed a COVID-19 vaccine dubbed Covaxin.
India is currently suffering through the second-worst COVID-19 outbreak in the world, with nearly 10 million cases and 140,000 deaths.
