Pfizer in ‘final stages’ of getting approval for COVID-19 vaccine in India: CEO

US pharma major Pfizer is in the final stages to get approval for the COVID-19 vaccine in India. “I hope very soon we will finalize an agreement with the government,” Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said, news agency ANI quoted.

The news comes amid rumours that the Indian government is in talks with the US pharmaceutical giant to establish a middle ground for vaccine supplies in the country. “Any final decision on vaccine imports must comply with Indian rules, and the administration hoped that these vaccines will be available in the country by the end of the year,” government advisor Vinod Kumar Paul was quoted as saying by CNBC TV-18.

Pfizer, which developed the vaccine in partnership with the German firm BioNtech, employed the revolutionary messenger-RNA (mRNA) technology for the shot and it has a very high efficacy of over 90 per cent in preventing the infection.

The Pfizer CEO further further said that the company had donated some critical life-saving medicines to India at the time of deadly second wave of Covid-19.

Pfizer is dedicated to becoming a partner in India’s fight against this disease, according to Albert Bourla, and is working fast to mobilise the company’s greatest humanitarian relief operation in its history.

A go-ahead to the Pfizer vaccine will make it the second foreign vaccine to be cleared for use in India, after Sputnik V. The nod is expected to further boost the immunisation exercise in the country.

India yesterday administered a record 86.16 lakh doses of Covid vaccines, as per data on the CoWIN portal. The jump in jabs administered came on Day One of the new vaccine policy.