Bharat Biotech ramps up annual manufacturing capacity of Covaxin to 700 million doses
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New Delhi, Apr 21: Bharat Biotech has ramped up its manufacturing capacity across multiple facilities in Hyderabad and Bangalore, in order to produce 700 million doses of Covaxin annually. The govt has approved a payment of about Rs 4,500 crore on Apr 19, as advance to vaccine makers including Bharat Biotech and Serum Institute of India (SII) that is producing AstraZeneca’s Covishield in India.
The move to expand annual manufacturing of indigenous vaccines came ahead of opening the vaccination drive to all citizens over 18 years of age. The SII will supply 200 million doses and Bharat Biotech is set to supply another 90 million doses to the govt by July at a pre-agreed rate of 150 rupees per dose. Bharat Biotech said manufacturing has been scaled up in a step-wise manner, and raw and packing materials, and single-use consumables have been secured adequately.
The company said it is able to expand Covaxin’s manufacturing capacity in a short time due to the availability of new specially designed BSL-3 facilities, a first-of-its-kind for manufacturing in India. Bharat Biotech said, manufacturing partnerships are being explored in other countries with facilities that have prior expertise with commercial scale manufacture of inactivated viral vaccines under biosafety containment.
To further increase capacities, Bharat Biotech has partnered with Indian Immunologicals (IIL) to manufacture the drug substance for Covaxin. The technology transfer process is underway and IIL has the capabilities and expertise to manufacture inactivated viral vaccines at commercial scale and under biosafety containment.