After BMC Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal claimed that it had received a bid from Pfizer in response to its Covid-19 vaccine procurement tender, Pfizer has clarified that it has made no such bid. The denial by Pfizer was tweeted out by Economic Times journalist Divya Rajagopal.
Pfizer told Rajagopal, “Neither Pfizer Inc nor any of its affiliates globally, including in India, have authorized anyone to import/market/distribute the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID 19 vaccine. Pfizer is supplying its COVID-19 vaccine only to central Governments and supra-national organizations”.
Earlier, BMC Commissioner Iqbal Singh had said that they have received 8 bids so far, one from Pfizer and seven from Sputnik. Singh said, “We have received 8 bids in response to BMC Global Expression of Interest for procurement of 1 crore vaccine doses. One bid is for Pfizer/AstraZeneca and the remaining 7 bids are for Sputnik.”
“The time period has been extended by one week to enable various bidders to submit complete set of documents in support of the bids as prescribed under BMC’s Global Expression of Interest. Any additional bid shall also be entertained,” added.
The denial by Pfizer appears consistent with the response the Punjab government had received recently. Pfizer had cited the same reason to deny dealing with the state government. The Delhi Government had also said that Pfizer has told them they will deal only with the central government.
Moderna, too, has refused to deal with state governments citing their policy decision.