For Indian vaccine makers, a lot hinges on the WTO

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Editor's note: The opportunity beckons. For the global pharmaceutical industry, it’s a race against the clock to vaccinate the world’s population against COVID-19. And, who better than India to supply the shots, in the cheapest and quickest way possible.  The only Indian company that has made headlines so far is the Pune-based Serum Institute of India, which also happens to be the world’s largest manufacturer of vaccines. The company tied up with AstraZeneca, to bring a vaccine developed by the British-Swedish multinational firm along with UK’s Oxford University to the Indian market. SII will produce a billion doses of the vaccine by 2021-22, including 400 million this year, and is ready to push its stock into the market as soon as the vaccine is approved by the government.  The other companies in the race have largely been silent so far. Two among them came into the limelight after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s whistle-stop tour to take stock of vaccine production on 28 November. Along with SII’s Pune facility, he also visited the Zydus Cadila (Cadila Healthcare) unit in Ahmedabad and the Bharat …