With a reputation as the ‘pharmacy of the world,’ India is geared to mass-produce COVID-19 vaccines

While the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine rollout in the United Kingdom and the United States has been widely heralded as the beginning of the end of the pandemic, much of the developing world has its hopes set elsewhere.

India has become a global powerhouse for generic pharmaceutical drugs and accounts for about 60 per cent of the world’s vaccine supplies, earning a reputation as the “pharmacy of the world”.

And unlike the Pfizer vaccine — which is safe and effective but relatively expensive and unstable — the vaccines India can mass-produce are still safe but cheaper and easier to handle.

The hope is that this could make Indian companies like the Serum Institute, which is the world’s largest vaccine maker, world leaders in producing and…