The Challenges of Developing a Safe and Effective COVID-19 Vaccine

By Mr. Neeraj Mehta, CEO, Immunifyme

COVID-19 which is caused by the virus named SARS-COV-2, originated from China and quickly spread across the globe. WHO recognized it as a Pandemic which has till today infected 15.2 million people worldwide and more than 620 thousand deaths. In India it is spreading wider and till now about 1.24 million people are infected and nearly 30 thousand people have lost their lives.

It is a dreaded disease and the whole world is looking for a vaccine to treat the COVID-19 effectively and control the spread of the disease. While many companies are in the race to produce a vaccine, few have already gone into various Phases of human trials. Moderna's mRNA-1273 and Oxford-AstraZeneca's Covid vaccine are ahead and have proven the safety and efficacy of the vaccine.

So now that we know, the vaccines are definitely on the way, the world will face a different kind of challenges. 

Few of the challenges which I see are:

1. Avoiding counterfeited vaccines 

Fake Vaccines! Yes, COVID-19 is a dreaded pandemic and everyone is looking forward for a vaccine. Thanks to Serum Institute of India and Adar Poonawalla that we have already started the production of COVID-19 vaccine in the name of Covishield for India and the world.

2. Vaccine Distribution

Covishield is not a Routine Vaccine: The world will need billions of doses to be manufactured in order for the vaccine to be available in all parts of the World, thankfully Serum Institute of India is one of the only few companies in the world to have the capability to manufacture this volume of doses. GAVI too has tie-up with UPS. UPS has committed a US$ 3 million in new funding and in-kind logistics support spanning two years, provided by UPS and The UPS Foundation to Gavi. This initiative will help COVID-19 vaccine's equitable and timely distribution. However, India will still need its own logistics in order for the vaccine to reach to everyone. We must ensure it is accessible to each person in India.

3. Surveillance during Vaccination and monitoring and follow-up for upcoming doses

Monitoring of people who would have received the vaccine: This is extremely crucial for us to monitor people who would have received the vaccine, in order to ensure they also receive the follow up dose and how are they doing in the long run after receiving the vaccine.

While it is a great thing that vaccine will be available soon, but we should be prepared for a long wait as well. The initial supplies will be extremely limited and the frontline health-care professionals will get the first access followed by those people who are vulnerable to serious illness. To make this vaccine reach each and everyone, India will have to work hand in hand with other nations.

Huawei Ranks No. 6 Among World’s Most Innovative Companies 2020

Global leading ICT infrastructure provider Huawei has ranked No. 6 in BCG’s recent released list of the 50 Most Innovative Companies in 2020, moved up by 42 places. This is the highest ranking for the tech giant since it first made the list in 2012. According to the report by Boston Consulting Group, Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft and Huawei occupy the top 6 spots in the new ranking, followed by Alibaba, IBM, Sony and Facebook.

The ranking is based on a survey of 2,500 global innovation executives and assesses companies’ performance on four dimensions of Global “Mindshare”, Industry Disruption, Industry Peer View and Value Creation. This year, BCG also added a new scoring dimension that captures each company’s variety and intensity of boundary breaking, by assessing its ability to breach established industry entry barriers and play in an array of markets outside its own.

As the world’s largest supplier of telecommunications equipment, Huawei has continuously invested over 10% of its annual revenue back into R&D. In 2019, the company’s R&D expenditure totalled CNY131,659 million, accounting for 15.3% of its total revenue. 

In terms of 5G, Huawei invested 4 billion USD in the past decade, which makes it the global leader in this next-generation technology. To further commercial adoption and promote new innovation in 5G applications, the company has established 5G joint innovation centers together with carriers worldwide.

According to its annual report, the tech giant is shifting itself from an innovation 1.0 model to Innovation 2.0, which means breakthroughs in basic theory and developing new basic technologies, driven by shared vision for the future.

In the global fight against COVID-19, Huawei doubled down its innovation efforts and launched the Anti-COVID-19 Partner Program that focuses on AI, remote office, smart healthcare and online education, to support the fight against the pandemic. Its AI-assisted diagnosis, for example, could output CT quantification results in seconds and help frontline medical staff detect COVID-19 cases.

“When we began the research for this 14th edition of BCG’s Most Innovative Companies report, COVID-19 had not yet emerged. As we explored the data and interacted with clients, however, it became clear that this year’s core findings—about the advantages of scale and the imperative for serial innovation—may be even more relevant today as innovation leaders need to adapt to rapidly shifting patterns of supply, demand, consumer behavior, and ways of doing business,” wrote the author of the BCG report.

Recession likely to continue for six months, says Bill Gates

Microsoft founder, Bill Gates, expects US economy to reel under global financial slow down for more than six months. However, Gates hopes, the rapid economic and technological advancements made by emerging economies like China and India in last decade will see to it that slow down impact is temporary. "There is no doubt that there is going to be economic crisis in the US. There are imbalances in the US and economy will have weakness," said Gates.

"I can not predict whether the financial crisis will be two years or three years, but it will be more than six month and then the economy will get back on track" forecasted Gates. Addressing the packed gathering here at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Gates however sounded confident in his assessment that global economy has changed enough to ward of crisis resulting from meltdown in the housing market and heavy consumer debt.

"If you look at the world and US economy since 1990, the results have been really phenomenal. The fact that India has liberalized and grown it economy.. The fact that China is now a global player. The world economy benefits from this scale, being able to trade products and being able to collaborate with brilliant minds", said Gates.

"It won’t be a long term impact. I take five or ten year’s view. Company like Microsoft are not cutting back on it research. The benefits of these researches will be delivered on time,” added Gates.

"Even though we are going to have a little bit of challenge in the US, we are not going to erase the policy maps the we have made, nor are we going to stop from going back on the map” added Gates.

"New medicines, new materials, are coming as planned in the next decade,", he added.
Gates added that US economic downturn need not be extended to other countries. “I think markets have overreacted", he added.

Talking about their research projects here, Gates said that in their research laboratory here - half of whose staff are from the IITs - developed a medium through which the farming community can benefit.

"They would have wanted to give the farmers a personal computer, but knowing the limitations, they developed a video DVD in which they filmed farmers using the best farming practices and talking in local languages. These practices were later reviewed by experts and presented in an appealing manner," Gates noted.

"Of course, a more interactive medium would have been better and we are working towards it. But for now, the farming community is happy to sit around a TV set in a village and pick up practices that benefit them," Gates said.