Covid-19 crisis: Over no response, states relax global vaccine tender norms

Having received no response in the initial round of global tenders floated to procure Covid-19 vaccines, states like Uttar Pradesh and the civic body of Mumbai are now relaxing the criteria for procurement. This comes even as a few more states like West Bengal and Bihar are considering floating similar tenders.
 
A Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) official said they have extended the bid by one week. “We have extended the bid date by one week. We have received some queries. To increase broad participation we extended the expression of interest (EoI) date by a week to May 25,” the official said.
 
BMC was the first civic body in the country to float a global tender for purchasing vaccines. The tender was for 10 million doses and Sunday was the last day for accepting queries from interested bidders, but it received no bids. It was eyeing global vaccine firms like Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson and Johnson (J&J), but these firms are yet to get a final approval in India.
 
A BMC official added that whichever firm bids, it will have to secure the mandatory clearances from the drugs regulator, and also provide the required storage facility. “Some of these global vaccines require sub-zero temperatures. We expect them to provide the cold chain plan,” he added.
 
The civic body expects bids to come during the extended period.
 
UP aims to inoculate 90 million people in the 18-45 years age group. The state government has now decided to relax the criteria in the global tender for procuring 40 million doses after it did not receive the desired response in the tender it floated. The pre-bid meet was attended by the representatives of Pfizer, Serum Institute of India (SII), Bharat Biotech, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories (Indian partner for Russian Sputnik V vaccine), and Zydus Cadila, apart from a South Korean firm.

 
The tender norms were amended after receiving feedback from leading manufacturers at the virtual conference organised by nodal agency UP Medical Supplies Corporation (UPMSC) on May 12.
 
Now, the state has amended the criteria of storing vaccines between 2-8 degree Celsius and allowed firms to participate in the tendering process even if their vials need to be stored at sub-zero temperatures. The 2-8 degree Celsius storage norm had effectively rendered Pfizer and Moderna out of contention since their mRNA (messenger RNA) vaccines have to be stored at minus 20-80 degree Celsius temperatures. Besides, the government has also halved the earnest money deposit (EMD) criteria for the participating firms from Rs 16 crore to Rs 8 crore.
 
SII has expressed its inability to participate in UP’s tender, citing large volumes of orders it had already received, sources in the state government claimed.
 
The meeting minutes (Business Standard has a copy of the document) shows that Pfizer informed that it was expecting to receive approval from the Centre for supplying its vaccine, while Zydus Cadila has said that it expected to receive the nod next month.
 
Last month, the UP government had directly placed an order for 10 million doses — five million doses each from Bharat Biotech and SII.
 
“Apart from the global tender and the direct order of 10 million vaccines, the state will receive additional vaccines from the Centre for the vaccination programme,” Navneet Sehgal, UP additional chief secretary – information, had earlier told Business Standard.
 
Meanwhile, the Bihar government is expected to float a global tender for vaccines as well. Former Bihar deputy chief minister and senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi has already suggested that Bihar CM Nitish Kumar invite bids on the lines of other states.
 
The Bihar government has already given in principle approval for spending Rs 4,165 crore on the state’s vaccination programme, of which Rs 1,000 crore has already been allocated.
 
West Bengal, too, is consulting experts before it floats a global tender. The Union health ministry noted that the Centre has so far provided more than 200 million doses (207,610,230) to states and union territories free of cost. Of this, the total consumption, calculated based on average up to May 16, is 187 million doses.
 
“Furthermore, 294,660 vaccine doses are in the pipeline and will be received by the states/UTs within the next 3 days,” the health ministry noted on May 17.