By Express News Service
NEW DELHI: Bharat Biotech on Thursday announced its plan to rope in its wholly owned subsidiary Chiron Behring for speed up production of Covaxin, India’s first and only indigenously developed COVID-19 vaccine so far, by an additional 20 crore doses per year.
This will effectively take the volumes of Covaxin to nearly 1 billion doses per annum, produced at the company’s own established campuses specialised for manufacturing inactivated viral vaccines under the highest levels of biosafety, claimed the firm.
As of now, Bharat Biotech is manufacturing only about 1.5 crore doses of Covaxin per month which is likely to go up to 4-5 crore doses per month by July this year.
The company, facilitated by the Union government which is under huge pressure to fulfil huge demands for Covid vaccines in the country, has tied up with three public service undertakings to scale up the production of Covaxin.
These undertakings, however, could take quite a few months before actual productions start.
Bharat Biotech said on Thursday that Covaxin produced at Chiron Behring at Ankleshwar, Gujarat could be available September onwards.
“Bharat Biotech had already deployed multiple production lines at its Hyderabad and Bengaluru campuses, adding Chiron Behring to this line up of high containment BSL (bio safety lab) rated GMP facilities that are required to manufacture Covaxin,” said the company in a statement.
“The company plans to produce 200 million doses of Covaxin per annum in the GMP facilities that are already operational for the production of vaccines based on Inactivated Vero Cell Platform Technology, under stringent levels of GMP and biosafety,” it said.
“This effectively takes the volumes up to 1 billion doses per annum, with its own established campuses specialised for manufacturing inactivated viral vaccines under the highest levels of biosafety,” it added.
The Ankleshwar-based plant would start rolling out the much in demand vaccine from the fourth quarter of the year, it added.
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The company said it has already deployed multiple production lines for the vaccine at its Hyderabad and Bengaluru campuses.
Government had earlier said that talks are on with at least nine other companies in other countries-including 5 in Germany—to scale up the production of Covaxin.
Top authorities handling the Covid crisis in India, about a week back, had said that 2.16 billion doses of vaccines could be available between August-December of which Covaxin will comprise 55 crore doses.
However, experts have dismissed these projections as highly unrealistic.
Chiron Behring Vaccines, a 100 per cent subsidiary of Bharat Biotech, is one of the largest manufacturers of rabies vaccines in the world.
Last month, Bharat Biotech had announced that it has been able to enhance the production capacity of Covaxin to 700 million doses per annum.
Manufacturing scale up has been carried out in a stepwise manner across multiple facilities at Hyderabad and Bangalore, the company had stated.
Bharat Biotech sells Covaxin to the states at Rs 400 per dose.
Facing the world’s fastest-growing coronavirus outbreak, India has seen a near collapse of its health care system in several parts as hospitals ran out of oxygen and did not have enough beds to admit new patients.
To deal with the crisis, the government has, among other measures, opened up vaccination for all above 18 years.
But the procurement of vaccines for those between 18 and 44 years has been left to states and private hospitals.
This has led to state after state rushing to Bharat Biotech and Serum Institute of India (SII).
Both the companies are at the forefront of supplying COVID-19 vaccines in the country even as the second wave of the pandemic continues to ravage various states.
India has announced expansion of its COVID-19 vaccination drive by allowing its large 18-plus population to get inoculated from May 1.
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Over the last few days several states have pointed out a shortage in supply of vaccines.
Some of the states have even gone ahead by floating global tenders to cater to the demand.
Bharat Biotech has received Emergency Use Authorisations (EUAs) for Covaxin in India and in several countries across the globe with another 60 in the process.
Pricing for international markets and supplies to governments under EUA’s have been established between USD 15-20 per dose.
(With PTI Inputs)
