Serum - Protection from birth onwards
Pune, India: Serum Institute of India and Bilthoven Biologicals B.V., The Netherlands, have endeavoured to support the Programme to reach the Global Polio Eradication Initiative [GPEI] Endgame Strategic Plan 2013-2018, by substantially reducing the price of IPV from the prevailing price available in the market, in the recent tender bid with UNICEF.
This is for the first time that the two Companies have joined hands together to make IPV available to UNICEF at a subsidized rate, which resulted in triggering a global reduction in price of IPV .
Dr. Roeland van Dam, CEO of Bilthoven Biologicals announced the reduction in IPV price for the first time compared to the prevailing price of IPV, solely due to the financial subsidization of the cost provided by Serum Institute of India. This has been achieved with the objective of providing vaccines to the poorer countries of the world.
Dr. Cyrus S. Poonawalla, Chairman of Serum Institute of India, stated that he was proud to support the IPV programme to reach the GPEI Endgame Strategic Plan 2013-2018, in keeping with his commitment to the World Health Organization to make available Polio vaccine as affordable as possible. With the R&D efforts that are put in, he is confident that the price of IPV will further reduce in the future.
Both Bilthoven Biologicals and Serum Institute of India continue their efforts to develop their production both in numbers and reduction in price for the future, which benefit they expect to pass on [as they have done several times in the past] to the poorer countries requiring vaccine for moving towards the GPEI Endgame Strategic Plan 2013-2018.
Recently Serum Institute of India has stepped-in to resolve the acute shortage of hundreds of million doses of OPV (Oral Polio Vaccine), required by the U.N. Agencies, at short notice and at affordable prices, thus mitigating a Polio vaccine availability crisis.
It would be relevant to note that Bilthoven Biologicals has not only offered a special price for the poorer countries compared to their past price, but extended this uniformly to all other 120 countries which were equally in need of this vaccine to be introduced for achieving the GPEI Endgame Strategic Plan 2013-2018