Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine Authorized For Emergency Use In India: What You Need To Know

Moderna, Inc.'s MRNA COVID-19 vaccine should soon find its way into India, one of the countries worst affected by the second wave of the pandemic.

What Happened: India's drug regulator, the Drugs Controller General of India, has approved the importation of Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine for restricted emergency use in India, the Hindustan Times reported, citing sources.

Permission to import Moderna's vaccine has been granted to Indian pharma company Cipla, the report said. Cipla on Monday submitted a request to the DCGI on behalf of Moderna.

Moderna had earlier communicated to the DCGI that the U.S. government has agreed to donate a certain number of its mRNA vaccines against the novel coronavirus through the COVAX alliance.

On Tuesday, Moderna released new results from in vitro neutralization studies of sera from individuals vaccinated with its COVID-19 Vaccine showing activity against variants of SARS-CoV-2, including the Delta variant first identified in India.

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Why It's Important: Moderna has gotten ahead of Pfizer, Inc. PFE/BioNTech SA BNTX in getting conditional authorization in India. India has previously authorized three vaccines: AstraZeneca plc's AZN Covishield, Bharat Biotech's Covaxin and Russia's Sputnik.

Indications from the government point to authorization for Pfizer vaccine in the near future. 

With the second wave, India became the epicenter of COVID-19 pandemic. By mid-June, India had 29.3 million reported cased of COVID-19 infection, with the death toll at 367,081.

MRNA Price Action: Moderna shares were up 6.21% at $236.78 at last check Tuesday.

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