We just recently launched our malaria
vaccine, the second malaria vaccine in the world that's going out to the
African countries this year. That took us 6 to 7 years to fund and
develop through different stages. Very similarly with the HPV vaccine,
which is the cervical cancer vaccine for women.
So it takes us a bit longer because, you know, funding and other reasons.
So I think both groups of companies between the East and the West have their
advantages and disadvantages. Our labour costs are lower, energy costs
are lower, so we can be more efficient. Our people work harder.
They work for longer hours. So there are pros and cons and
advantages and disadvantages that both have.
Talk to us about plans to scale in terms of your malaria vaccine, your cervical
cancer vaccines. I mean, what's the 3 to 5 year plan?
We've built a capacity of roughly about 100 million doses for each of the
vaccines. Right now, the demand for the malaria
vaccines is not even half that. It's slowly picking up as the countries
gear up in Africa to receive the vaccine, to use the vaccine.
There's a lot of planning that happens at the introductory stage.
So I think in about two years time they'll probably reach a demand level of
100 million doses, which will be matched by the supply.
And very similarly, there's a global shortage of the HPV vaccine as well.
A lot of countries need it, and there are very few vaccine manufacturers
again, producing this vaccine because it's very complicated and difficult to
make over the next 2 to 3 years. That demand supply mismatch will also be
sort of addressed with the supply going out from Serum Institute.