Bharat Biotech eyes global tie-ups to scale up vax mfg

City- headquarteredBharat Biotech is exploring manufacturing partnerships with its partners in other countries, who have prior expertise with commercial-scale manufacturing of inactivated viral vaccines under biosafety containment for further augmentation.

Bharat Biotech CMD Dr Krishna Ella said, "The company is now marching towards the goal of annualised capacity of nearly 1 billion doses. We want to ensure that it ably meets the demand for Covaxin so that individuals across the country and the globe have access to it to secure their health and safety."

Suchitra Ella, Joint Managing Director of Bharat Biotech, said that the company is now "several steps closer to achieving our goal of providing Covaxin to all pockets of the country and overseas." The company has released the first commercial batch of Covaxinfrom its new plant in Gujarat on Sunday.

After acquiring Chiron Behring Vaccines Pvt Ltd from GlaxoSmithKline Asia in 2019, Bharat Biotech constructed a new filing facilityat Ankleshwar in Gujarat's Bharuch district during 2020. It is now being utilised for the production of Covaxin. The vaccine production had begun in early June.

Bharat Biotech has already deployed multiple production lines at its Hyderabad, Malur, Bengaluru, and Pune campuses. The addition of this facility will further augment its Covaxin production capacity, the company said. Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya dedicating the release of the first batch of the anti-Covid-19 vaccine from the facility to the nation. He said the new plant has a manufacturing capacity of more than 1 crore doses per month, and products from the facility will be available for supplies from September.

"Vaccination is the most important thing to strengthen the country's fight against Covid. Released the first commercial batch of #Covaxin from Bharat Biotech's plant at Ankleshwar, Gujarat today. This will increase the supply of vaccine in the country and will help the vaccine reach every Indian,"he tweeted.

"India is focused on slowing the spread of Covid in the country, and the key to achieving this lies in the swift and efficient administration of vaccines. We want to ensure equitable access of the vaccine to every Indian citizen," he said. "The expansion of Covaxin production facilities by Bharat Biotech will take us closer to this goal,"Mandaviya, who also heads the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers, was quoted as saying in a statement issued by Bharat Biotech.