​‘We Need To Encourage More Manufacturers To Enter And Stay In The (Vaccines) Market'

Serum Institute of India is one of the eight key vaccine companies covered in the recently released first Access to Vaccines Index. In an exclusive interaction with Viveka Roychowdhury, Jayasree K Iyer, Executive Director, Access to Medicine Foundation, touches on the success of Pune-based company’s high volume-low revenue model and why local and international players should be willing to partner in global agendas like health security and child health.

- Viveka Roychowdhury

Serum Institute of India has chosen the high volume, low revenue business model. Will this be sustainable going forward? Will the company have enough revenues to invest in R&D? 

It is difficult to determine what an ‘appropriate’ revenue amount would be to invest in R&D. The high volume, low revenue model has worked for Serum so far, and we see that they have invested into a rather substantial and important pipeline, so they do indeed know how to be cost effective in R&D, while ensuring affordable prices of products on the market.