Bharat Biotech to Ramp up Covid Vaccine Output in India
India’s Bharat Biotech, which specializes in infectious diseases, has announced it is adding new manufacturing capacity for its Covid-19 shot known as Covaxin, India’s first indigenous vaccine. The expansion will go on stream in this year’s fourth quarter at the Ankleshwar site operated by wholly owned subsidiary Chiron Behring Vaccines.
Bharat said it plans to produce 200 million doses of Covaxin annually in GMP facilities it already uses to make vaccines based on Inactivated Vero Cell Platform technology. The biotech said it has already deployed multiple production lines at its Hyderabad and Bengaluru campuses. Adding Chiron Behring to the lineup of high containment BSL-related GMP facilities required to produce Covaxin effectively lifts capacity to 1 billion doses annually, the biotech said.
Bharat Biotech claims more than 145 global patents and a portfolio that includes four biotherapeutics and more than 16 vaccines, among other things for influenza H1N1, rotavirus, Japanese encephalitis, rabies, Zika, cholera, and what it said is the world’s first tetanus-toxoid conjugated typhoid vaccine. Subsidiary Chiron Behring, specializing in rabies, was acquired from former German chemical giant Hoechst.
The Indian vaccine maker said in mid-May that it planned to begin clinical trials with its vaccine in children aged 2 to 18 over the next few weeks as the country is in the grip of a devastating surge in Covid cases. In trials with adults, the shot was seen to have an efficacy rate of around 81%. Covaxin is one of two Covid shots manufactured in India. The other is AstraZeneca’s vaccine, known there as Covi-Shield.
Author: Dede Williams, Freelance Journalist
