How do Serum Institute and Wockhardt benefit from their proposed tie-up to manufacture drugs in the UK?

Wockhardt UK, a unit of Wockhardt Ltd of India, has signed an agreement with Serum Life Sciences to set up a new vaccine manufacturing facility in Wrexham, North Wales, United Kingdom. Serum Life Sciences is a subsidiary of Serum Institute of India of the Cyrus Poonawala group. The alliance will result in the creation of a new sterile “fill and finish” facility in the United Kingdom to manufacture 150 million additional doses of the vaccine.

The structure will be a profit-sharing arrangement between Serum Life Sciences and Wockhardt UK. The broad expectation is that the output of the Wrexham facility will address the supply chain constraints faced by the pharmaceutical industry. While it will start with COVID-19 vaccines, the broader engagement will cover a slew anti-infective vaccines. This deal will also build long-term capacity in the UK for such vaccines.

Since Wockhardt UK already manufactures COVID-19 vaccines in UK in sync with the UK government and AstraZeneca, the collaboration with a highly respected name like Serum Life Sciences will only make the product offering stronger. This will bolster supply resilience and support the global rollout of vaccines out of the UK. It allows the alliance to service the higher lucrative markets of UK and EU in close geographical proximity.

This is just a start and there is potential for the collaboration to expand. Wockhardt currently owns plants in the UK and Ireland, with the UK plant already making the AstraZeneca vaccine on behalf of the UK government. For Wockhardt, this deal is symbolic of its rising importance in the global supply of multiple vaccines as well as in protecting citizens against infectious diseases.