Poonawala's Serum Inst to soon launch India's first cervical cancer vaccine

India's first indigenously developed quadrivalent Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccine for the prevention of cervical cancer will be launched in a few months and made available to the people in an affordable price range of Rs 200-400, Serum Institute of India CEO Adar Poonawalla said on Thursday.

Speaking at an event held to announce the scientific completion of the vaccine, Union Minister of Science and Technology Jitendra Singh said the vaccine will be affordable and the government will ensure that it is accessible to the common man.

Scientific completion implies that R&D activities pertaining to the vaccine are complete and now the next step of making them available to the public would take place.

Singh said Covid has raised awareness about preventive healthcare leading to the development of vaccines like the one against cervical cancer.

"Schemes like Ayushman Bharat have made us think about preventive healthcare and we can now afford it. The Department of Biotechnology has taken a lead in the matter and are in collaborative mode," he said.

"Scientific efforts at times do not get the scale of recognition they deserve. So this event is to celebrate that scientific completion," he said.

Poonawalla told reporters on the sidelines of the event, "The cervical cancer vaccine will be affordable and would be available in the range of Rs 200-400. However, the final price will be decided after detailed discussions with the government."

"The vaccine would be much much less in price as compared to other vaccines for cervical cancer," he said.

Poonawalla said the vaccine will be possibly launched by the end of the year.

The vaccine would First be made available through the government channel and from next year onwards some private partners would be involved too, he said.

Poonawalla also said that a plan to make 200 million doses is in place and first the vaccine would be given in India and only after needs of the country are fulfilled will it be exported to other countries.

Rajesh Gokhale, department of biotechnology secretary, said over 2000 volunteers participated across the country for this vaccine.

"Partnerships between private-public are becoming very important in such research, this co-creation is what is going to make all the difference in the world," he said.

Dr N Kalaiselvi, director general, CSIR said this is the first stepping stone and research in the field and it will further continue.

"This government has taken the most amount of care to come up with this type of innovation, making us Aatmanirbhar," she said.

According to the officials, the qHPV vaccine CERVAVAC has demonstrated robust antibody response that is nearly 1,000 times higher than the baseline against all targeted HPV types and in all dose and age groups.

Cervical cancer in India ranks as the second most frequent cancer among women between 15 and 44 years of age.

The Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) had in July granted market authorisation to the Serum Institute to manufacture the vaccine against cervical cancer.